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The Writings series (2.9 linear feet) is broken down into seven subseries: articles, criticism, opinion pieces, poetry, reviews, short stories, and translations.

The criticism subseries (1.4 linear feet) contains the manuscripts of and notes for criticism written by Johnson and documents his wide range of interests. His dissertation on comparative literature and the imagery of blackness is included in the undated manuscripts of The Devil, the Gargoyle, and the Buffoon: Western Literature and the Idea of Blackness in Human Form. There are multiple discussions of Shakespeare's influence in Africa and Africa's influence on Shakespeare. Johnson studied American culture in his outline and manuscript of American Culture, or the Trouble with Babo's Head. His most recent work was on African eroticism, including several drafts of (en)Countering Traditions of the Erotic in African Narratives; Genesis and Genitalia; and Genesis and Genitalia: African Literature and Narratives of the Sexual. There are also several drafts of works dealing with the issue of homosexuality in Africa entitled Native Bodies: (dis)Counting Sex, (en)Countering Homosexuality (undated), No Sweetness Here?: (dis)Counting Homosexuality (1998), and Mahmud Bilateral, or (en)Countering Homosexuality (2001 and undated). He also worked on an examination of nationalist literature from Africa and China in Hottentots, Coolies, and Messiahs: Nationalism and the Response in Literature (The Chinese Experience 1890-1945, and The African Experience 1945-1970). The collection contains only his notes on this subject.

The poetry subseries (1.3 linear feet) includes the identified notes for and drafts of all three volumes of Johnson's major work the Sierra Leone Trilogy, as well as the introduction. There are also several individual poems in this series. [For Marian] was written to his wife shortly before his death.

The articles subseries is two folders of newspaper articles, written for the Sierra Leone Daily Mail in 1971, criticizing the colonial legacy left by the British government and the social and political systems established by the Sierra Leone government. The opinion piece contains an article written for the Michigan Daily Weekend discussing institutional racism at the University of Michigan. The reviews subseries contains two folders of reviews of black and African literature written by Johnson from 1981 to 1985. Included is his review of Elliot H. Tokson's book The Popular Image of the Black Man in English Drama, 1550-1688. The short stories subseries contains six folders of short works of fiction written while he was a student at the University of Michigan. Most are in manuscript form, but the Father Northway stories are in the student literary journal Generation. There are two folders of the manuscript version of Lemuel Johnson's translations of the Spanish plays Nighttime and War in the Prado Museum and The People's Dreamer found in the translations subseries.