Mother For Mayor: Greensboro Mayor Yvonne Johnson
Latitude Magazine
May 10 – June 9, 2008
When Yvonne Johnson was campaigning for mayor of Greensboro, much of her emphasis was placed on her deep roots here, and her desire to improve the city her seven grandchildren will inherit. It was a simple pitch, avoiding politics as usual where opponents are defeated through character defamation.
Though she frequently referred to her accomplishments during her 14 years on the City Council, she rarely reached back further to share with voters a life filled with activism, an active search for the best in all people, and a family-wide unwillingness to submit to the limitations imposed by the segregated South of her youth.
After the jackrabbit start of her first term, including the December homicide rate spike and continued police department controversies, Johnson seemed relieved to have the opportunity to take a break by sharing her past during a recent interview.
The Mayor told her story in her modest office at her “day job” as executive director of One Step Further, where much of the wall space is occupied by plaques, each highlighting a different honor: two consecutive Citizen of the Year honors, winner of the 1st Annual Heritage Award, appreciation of her “unselfish dedication” to organizations including the National Organization for Woman and Delancey Street, and more.
The greatest surprise in Johnson’s life story was that though she had always intended to spend her career helping people, her plans had never included public office, let alone becoming the first African American mayor in Greensboro’s nearly 200 year history. Perhaps firsts loose their novelty when so many are included in one’s family: an uncle, Dr. W.L. Kennedy, who was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in dairy science; her husband, who was one of the first two African Americans to attend the Duke University School of Law; Johnson’s participation in the Sit-in Movement, the March on Washington and the desegregation of the Greensboro YWCA.
Though perseverance was clearly a factor in the monumental successes of her personal and family history, one wouldn’t know it from Johnson’s telling. Instead of being impressed with their accomplishments, she unfolds the stories as though they could have happened no other way, displaying the same modesty and directness that aided Johnson in winning the mayoral election. As she says, “I don’t mind telling the truth.”
The truth is that Johnson thought she wouldn’t win the election when she first ran for City Council in 1993. When a friend interrupted a vacation to suggest Johnson run, her initial reaction was to laugh. But soon, she had pulled together a diverse grassroots campaign committee, operating on almost no money. “My signs were so cheap, when it rained, they curled up.”
But she won and realized her love of public service. “I think one of the things I love the most is working with people to help them reach their goals and their dreams. That’s my high,” she said.
It’s a high that’s reflected throughout her life’s work, starting with studying psychology at both Bennett College and Howard University. As she discovered while working at Crownsville State Hospital, however, psychology was not the right career. As she said, “I’d just take [my client’s problems] home and I’d agonize and I’d worry and I said, ‘I need something where when I’ve done all I can do, I can just let it go.’”
Instead, Johnson sought alternate ways to make an impact on the lives of individuals and her community. She and her husband returned to Greensboro where their network of family members helped care for their two children. Johnson took a job with the YWCA shortly before their facilities were integrated. “I met so many wonderful people, women, all different races, ethnicities and just built relationships, friendships, bonds,” she said.
During her time at the YWCA, Johnson gave birth to her third child; she also met Carolyn Allen, who would become the first female mayor of Greensboro. Johnson and Allen worked together on dialogue groups throughout the city, inviting people to cross ethnic lines and form friendships. “It really did make some dent in [racial tensions],” said Johnson, “because people got to come into your neighborhood and come into your home.”
Johnson resigned from the YWCA when she received the surprising news of her fourth, and final pregnancy. For a year and a half, Johnson stayed home with the child she continues to call her baby, before enrolling in A&T State University in the masters of guidance and counseling program.
After graduation, a fluke opportunity landed her in a management position in a chemical manufacturing company. “It wasn’t really my thing, but I learned a lot,” Johnson said, citing new exposure to government contracting procedures and learning to right an ailing company.
In 1983, Johnson saw a new opportunity to “be a catalyst of change in people’s lives,” as the executive director of One Step Further, Inc., a United Way agency that offers services including alternative sentencing for nonviolent offenders, mediation services and life skills/conflict resolution training. In the 25 years since Johnson took the position, the organization has grown from two employees to 15, and from two programs to six.
The rest, her 14 years on the City Council, is preserved in the minutes of council meetings and countless newspaper articles. Five or six years ago, she began considering a mayoral run in the hopes that she could use her innate abilities to bring people together, and embrace the previously disenfranchised, to steer her hometown towards its greatest potential – economically, environmentally and ethically.
As for her landmark role as the first African American mayor of Greensboro, Johnson says she is humbled. “It’s like my life has almost come full circle, because here I am in the ‘60s, out in the streets of Greensboro, marching and demonstrating for civil rights. And, in 2008, the year of our bicentennial, I am mayor of this city. It almost makes me want to cry.”
Instead, she ended the interview with a joyful glint in her eye and a warm invitation to return any time.