Norton Mourns Death of Longtime Friend and Ally June Johnson (4/18/07)

Norton Mourns Death of Longtime Friend and Ally June Johnson
April 18, 2007

Washington, DC-Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said that she was heartbroken to learn of the passing of June E. Johnson, a personal friend and ally from Norton's early days in the civil rights movement and "a fellow warrior on the front lines seeking democracy for D.C. residents." Johnson died Friday reportedly of kidney failure.

Norton first met Johnson in Mississippi in 1963, when Johnson, then 15, was arrested for trying to register blacks to vote and was badly beaten in jail. Norton, a young Yale law student and worker for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who had just arrived in Greenwood, Mississippi, was dispatched to get Johnson out of jail, along with fellow SNCC activists Fannie Lou Hamer, Laurence Guyot and others who also were brutally beaten by segregationist police in Winona, Mississippi. Norton worked with Andrew Young, then an aide to Martin Luther King, Jr., and other SNCC workers to get Johnson and the others freed. Norton and Johnson remained close after Johnson moved to the District.

"June was on my mind, and would have been on the line on Monday, as we marched for D.C. voting rights, defying the rain and against the wind. When I was a student, June was a child and the wind was in the un-chartered territory of racial terrorism in the Mississippi Delta, where even the most fearless tenets of the civil rights movement came late and last. June sparkled with uncommon courage. She offered her causes and her friends with fierce loyalty that made us love her all the more," Norton said.

Before moving here in 1982, Johnson worked against segregation in her native Greenwood, Mississippi and with Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund--who also was Norton's Yale classmate--Johnson drew attention to the failures of Mississippi's antipoverty agencies, investigated prison conditions and was involved in numerous lawsuits seeking social justice.

In the District, Johnson's activism and service included membership on the D.C. Democratic State Committee, executive officer of the Ward Six Democrats, and board member of the Washington Gas Citizens' Advisory Council. She was employed by the D.C. Office of Early Childhood Development.

Johnson will be laid to rest in Greenwood on Saturday. A D.C. memorial service will be held in the coming weeks.