William E. Johnston

William E. Johnston (1838–1899) was a state legislator who served during the Reconstruction era in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1868 to 1869 and the South Carolina State Senate from 1869 to 1877.

Biography Johnston was born free in 1838 in Charleston, South Carolina and then raised in Philadelphia.

During the American Civil War he served in the Union Army returning after the war to South Carolina settling down in Sumter County and joining the African Methodist Episcopal Church as a minister. It was claimed that in his preaching he said that the key Christian figures of Christ, Joseph and Mary were all black Africans.

Johnston served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1868 to 1869 and then moved to the South Carolina State Senate to serve from 1869 to 1877. He was a Republican and quit the legislature when the Democrats took control.

In 1874 he was the chairman of the Sumter County Republican Party.