He had become a dominant junior high player, once scoring 48 points in a game.[17] Johnson looked forward to playing at Sexton High School, a school with a very successful basketball team and history that also happened to be only five blocks from his home. His plans underwent a dramatic change when he learned that he would be bused to the predominantly white Everett High School instead of going to Sexton,[2][24] which was predominantly black.[17][25] Johnson's sister Pearl and his brother Larry had bused to Everett the previous year and did not have a pleasant experience. There were incidents of racism, with rocks being thrown at buses carrying black students and white parents refusing to send their children to school.