Protagonist · Grove Street Families
The protagonist of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The character that defined a console generation.
Carl "CJ" Johnson is the protagonist of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (October 2004) and one of the most influential characters in video game history. Voiced by Young Maylay, CJ became the first Black playable protagonist in a mainstream open-world game, and Rockstar built the entire structure of San Andreas around his return to Los Santos after five years away.
CJ left Los Santos in 1987 after the death of his brother Brian, moving to Liberty City to escape the violence consuming Grove Street. He returns home in 1992 for the funeral of his mother, Beverly Johnson, killed in a drive-by that, the game later reveals, was orchestrated by his own gang's lieutenants. The opening hour of San Andreas sets up everything that follows: CJ is back on Grove Street, the gang is collapsing, and his older brother Sweet wants him to help rebuild.
The first act of San Andreas is, structurally, about CJ trying to restore the Grove Street Families to their pre-1987 dominance. He fights Ballas. He works with Sweet on territory consolidation. He works with Big Smoke and Ryder, his old lieutenants. The betrayal that defines the rest of the game (covered in our Big Smoke betrayal arc piece) is structurally invisible during this first act and obvious on a replay.
When the betrayal lands in The Green Sabre, CJ is dumped in rural Whetstone by Officer Tenpenny and forced to rebuild from nothing. The second and third acts of the game take him through Red County, San Fierro, Las Venturas, and the Loco Syndicate before he returns to Los Santos to settle the Grove Street accounts.
Three reasons CJ holds the spot he does in the GTA series.
CJ has not appeared in any HD-era Rockstar game, and the 3D-era canon ends with the events of San Andreas. The character's status going into the GTA 6 launch window is iconic but inactive. Rockstar has not signalled any direct revival.
For the wider Grove Street story, see our Johnson family piece and the Big Smoke betrayal breakdown.
