[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 172 (Thursday, November 2, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2098-E2100]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        A TRIBUTE TO ART JOHNSON

                                 ______


                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, November 2, 1995

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to take a few minutes to tell you 
about a man who has spent his life working as a healer but he is not a 
medical doctor. He has not repaired any broken bones or mended any 
human hearts. But he has devoted his life to healing the bitter and 
gaping rifts that separate the races in our county.
  The man I am describing is Dr. Arthur Johnson, my longtime friend in 
the struggle for justice, who retired September 30, 1995, as vice 
president for university relations and professor of education sociology 
at Detroit's Wayne State University, which just happens to be my alma 
mater.
  His title and his long list of degrees and commendations might lead 
some to believe he concentrated his civil rights work in the academic 
arena. That was not the case. His activism, which has spanned six 
decades, has 

[[Page E 2099]]
taken him repeatedly into hostile and dangerous territory. In the 
1950's, as executive director of the Detroit branch of the National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he helped organize 
sit-ins at Detroit lunch counters that refused to serve African-
Americans.
  In the early 1960's, he was at the front of civil rights marches to 
protest unfair housing practices in Detroit suburbs. Almost 40 years 
later, these suburbs still hold the dubious distinction of being the 
most segregated in the Nation.
  In the 1970's, he struggled to bring order out of the social chaos in 
the Detroit public schools where militant young students disrupted 
classes and shut down schools to demand a curriculum that reflected 
their African heritage.
  In the last two decades, Dr. Johnson has kept up his hectic pace and 
worked on numerous projects to increase understanding among the races. 
He has written passionately about the question of race which still 
divides this country.
  As he recently said, ``My experience kept me close to the issue of 
race and race oppression. The struggle is a part of me.'' But no matter 
how harsh the struggle, he never became embittered. He remained 
outwardly calm, refusing to let the enemy destroy him in anger. The 
enemy began testing him at an early age.
  Born in Americus, GA, in 1925, he grew up in an atmosphere poisoned 
by hatred and supremacy. But instead of creating hatred in him, that 
environment made him a determined fighter against the evils of racism.
  One incident in his youth helped shape his views. He was 13 years old 
and his family had moved to Birmingham. The memory of what happened is 
still vivid in his mind. One time he was walking in downtown Birmingham 
early in the evening with his uncle, who was about 20 years old. 
Suddenly they found themselves walking behind a white family--a father, 
a wife, and a little girl who was about 6 or 7. The girl was not paying 
attention to what she was doing, and she walked across young Arthur's 
path. He put his hand on her shoulder in a caring fashion to prevent 
her from stumbling. When her father saw that, he began to beat on 
Johnson as if he had lost his mind.

  During the entire beating, Johnson's uncle stood frozen in fear. For 
years, his uncle's failure to respond troubled him. Only later, when he 
himself was a grown man, did he fully understand why his uncle just 
stood there. In the racist climate, the uncle would have been killed 
for challenging a white man on a public street.
  Once he understood what had happened, he did not focus his anger on 
the specific individuals involved in that incident. Instead, he focused 
on a perverted system that filled whites with blind rage and blacks 
with terror. He knew that the ravenous monster called racism had to be 
attacked. He lifelong struggle began on that Birmingham street.
  Johnson's parents were hard-working people who valued education. His 
mother was a domestic servant and his father worked in the coal mines 
and the steel mills. After graduating from Birmingham's Parker High 
School, he attended college through the help of his grandmother, also a 
domestic servant. She used the little money she earned to help put him 
through Morehouse College in Atlanta.
  During those Morehouse years, he was part of a class that included 
students who would alter the course of this Nation: the young Martin 
Luther King, Jr., Ebony magazine publisher Robert Johnson, and noted 
historian Lerone Bennett whose work on African-American history has 
successfully linked generations of black Americans with their past.
  Those young men studied in an atmosphere that was carefully crafted 
by the late Dr. Benjamin Mays, Morehouse president and one of the 
Nation's premier and dignified voices for social change. Dr. Mays' 
message wasn't lost on them. ``Dr. Mays challenged us not to accept any 
measure of racial discrimination we did not have to,'' he once 
reflected. ``Above all else, he told us to keep our minds free. He told 
us that nobody can enslave your mind unless you let them.''
  While on campus, Johnson organized the school's first chapter of the 
NAACP. Armed with an undergraduate degree in sociology from Atlanta 
University, Art Johnson moved to Detroit in the early 1950's to take a 
job as executive secretary for the Detroit branch of the NAACP. He 
planned to stay in Detroit 3 years so he could get the urge to change 
the world out of his system before returning to academia. Those 3 years 
turned into 40.
  He remained at the helm of the NAACP for 14 years, guiding the 
organization through some of the most turbulent years in Detroit. In 
the 1950's, blacks were blatantly discriminated against in the job 
market, the housing market, and in hotels and restaurants. The NAACP 
led protest marches and sit-in demonstrations that battered the door of 
institutional racism and forced some change.
  The group's activism attracted a record number of new members. The 
Detroit chapter grew from 5,000 members to 29,000 during his tenure. 
Detroit proudly claimed the title of the largest NAACP chapter in the 
United States.
  Under this guidance, the Detroit chapter initiated the NAACP Freedom 
Fund Dinner which has become the most successful NAACP fund raiser in 
the country. Held each year, the event draws thousands of people and 
has been labeled the largest indoor dinner in the world.
  Art Johnson took a struggling local organization and helped it 
develop into a major force in the local and national struggle for civil 
rights.
  One reason for his success was his uncanny insight into society's 
problems. During a speech he gave some 35 years ago, he pinpointed six 
crucial issues facing African-Americans: voting rights, civil rights, 
segregated housing, inadequate medical care, job discrimination, and 
segregated schools. Despite some progress, those issues still remain at 
the top of our agenda.
  In 1964, he left the NAACP to become deputy director of the newly 
crated Michigan Civil Right Commission, the first such body in the 
Nation. The commission needed someone with proven skills. No one 
doubted that Art Johnson had them.
  In one of his first official statements, he made it clear that he 
hadn't forgotten that 13-year-old boy who was beaten without cause year 
earlier. In his low-key, no-nonsense fashion, he said that the struggle 
for equity and fairness in jobs, housing, education, and police 
community relations would keep the commission busy.
  He spent 2 years getting the commission on a solid footing, then he 
waded into one of the biggest challenges of his career. The Detroit 
public schools hired him as deputy superintendent for school community 
relations at the most turbulent time in the history of the school. The 
wrenching social upheavals in the streets during the 1960's registered 
in the classrooms as well. And Arthur Johnson was right in the middle 
of it all.
  In July 1967, Detroit exploded in a civil disturbance that claimed 43 
lives and destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of property. 
Rather than watching the flames from the safety of his office, Johnson 
joined those who told the rioters to clam themselves and told the 
police to immediately cease their wanton and often deadly attacks on 
the citizens.
  Conditions were tense in the classroom, too. Students were riding a 
wave of militancy, and Detroit was at the crest of that wave. Young 
protesters shut down schools and disrupted board meetings to air their 
grievances about a curriculum that largely ignored African-American 
culture.
  During one such protest, a group of determined young students seized 
Johnson and held him captive for 2 hours in a school library to call 
attention to their demands.
  When he wasn't caught up in the thick of debates with parents, 
students, and administrators, he was arguing with publishers whose 
textbooks failed to accurately and fairly reflect the experiences and 
contributions of African-Americans. More than once, he infuriated 
publishers by refusing to accept books that directly or indirectly 
fostered notions of black inferiority.
  After that demanding stint in the public schools, most people would 
take it easy, but he didn't.
  In the early 1970's, he traded one group of protesting students for 
another when he left the public school system and joined Wayne State 
University, a hotbed of student activism.
  As the vice president for university relations and as professor of 
educational psychology, he was right in the middle of the fray. 
Students demanded increased and immediate access to the decisionmaking 
process. They tried, as many good students do, to reshape the school in 
their image. Art was there, mediating, challenging, explaining, and 
listening. Sometimes the volume of the debate was so high that it was 
nearly impossible to hear the words, but he persevered.
  To me, the most amazing thing about Art Johnson is that he never lets 
problems trigger an emotional outburst in him. His studied calm has 
become his trademark.
  He has used his intellect to reason with friends and foes. He has 
walked into hostile and dangerous territory to push for freedom. He has 
maintained his composure and his dedication despite numerous threats 
and insults.
  When he suffered painful setbacks in the struggle for human rights, 
he never gave up hope or bowed to temporary defeat.
  Throughout his life, he carried the words of his teacher with him. He 
never allowed anyone to shackle his mind. He has fought consistently 
and tirelessly against such efforts.
  In 1988, he was working at the university, active in a number of 
community groups and deeply involved in the local NAACP chapter as 
president, a position he held from 1987 to 1993. During this period he 
also served as 

[[Page E 2100]]
cochair of the race relations task force for the Detroit strategic 
plan. As cochair, he wrote an insightful commentary on race relations 
that was published in the Detroit News.
  He wrote:

       When we freely examine racism for what it is--through our 
     individual experiences and as exposed in the Race Relations 
     Task Force report and other studies--it becomes clear that 
     the problem of race and racism in its structural and 
     institutional aspects . . . is in reality the form and 
     practice of our own apartheid.

  Because of his insight and his singular dedication to civil rights, 
Art has been awarded so many honors that it would take far too long to 
list them all. He wears his well-deserved praise with the humility of a 
man who realizes he is only doing what is just and right.

  In 1979, Morehouse College awarded him the honorary degree of doctor 
of humane letters in recognition of his scholarship in the field of 
sociology and his leadership in the battlefield of civil rights.
  His other honors include the Distinguished Warrior Award from the 
Detroit Urban League, the Greater Detroit Interfaith Round Table 
National Human Relations Award, the Afro-Asian Institute of Histadrut 
Humanitarian Award, the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce Summit 
Award, and the Crystal Rose Award from the Hospice Foundation of 
southeastern Michigan. The NAACP conferred five Thalheimer Awards upon 
Art for outstanding achievement.
  Art is a member of a variety of community groups. He sits on the 
board of directors of the Detroit Science Center, the Detroit Symphony 
Orchestra, and the American Symphony Orchestra League. Like me, he has 
a love of music. He is also a trustee for the Founders Society of the 
Detroit Institutes of Arts and president emeritus of the University 
Cultural Center Association.
  Art is the father of five children. He and his wife, Chacona Winters 
Johnson, a development executive for the University of Michigan, still 
live in Detroit.
  Even though Art Johnson has retired, he is busier than ever. When it 
comes to the struggle for justice, he just can't pull himself from the 
front lines.
  The Detroit community, and indeed the Nation, have benefited from his 
efforts to promote understanding and healing. It is with joy and 
sincerity that I thank Arthur Johnson. Because he never allowed anyone 
to shackle his mind, he made it possible for others to know the beauty 
of freedom.

                          ____________________