Eddie Bernice Johnson, trailblazer in Congress and beyond, dies at 88

Eddie Bernice Johnson, who pioneered work as a black woman in health care and government, first as a nurse in Dallas, then as the city’s first black senator since Reconstruction and then in 15 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, died on Sunday. She was 88.

Her death was confirmed by her son, Dawrence Kirk Johnson Sr., who did not specify where she died.

Ms. Johnson, who grew up in segregated Waco, Texas, served in Congress from 1992 until last January and championed legislation on water resources, which included flood control and environmental protection, and on education, which prioritized science, technology, engineering and math.

She was the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus in 2001-2003 and the first Black woman to lead the House Science Committee. When she decided not to run again in November 2022, she was dean of the Texas Congressional delegation and the oldest member of the House of Representatives.

In 1998, she helped rally black support for President Bill Clinton when Republicans impeached him for perjury and obstruction of justice. In 2002, she voted against the resolution authorizing the war against Iraq, arguing that the administration had failed to provide evidence of an imminent threat to the United States.

She also helped fend off Republican efforts to weaken the government’s efforts to mitigate climate change.

As tireless and demanding as she could be, Mrs. Johnson was also considered a pragmatic lawmaker who could reach across the aisle to get bills passed rather than just from the gallery.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson called her the city’s “most effective legislator,” adding, “No one has brought more federal infrastructure money to our city. No one has fought harder for our communities and the interests and safety of our residents. And no one knew how to better navigate Washington for the people of Dallas.”

Eddie Bernice Johnson was born in Waco on December 3, 1935, the son of Lillie Mae (White) Johnson, a homemaker and the daughter of sharecroppers, and Edward Johnson, a tailor whose family, descendants of Scots-Irish indentured servants, owned farmland in the area of Houston.

Before her parents knew they were having a daughter, they agreed to name their baby Eddie, after a young cousin who had recently died of pneumonia.

She was inspired to become a doctor after her paternal grandfather became ill and joined the household. “But when I told my high school counselor, she said, ‘Oh, you can’t be a doctor. You are a young lady. You have to be a nurse,” she recalled in an interview with The History Makers Digital Archive in 2012.

After her father failed to find a nursing school in Texas that accepted black students, she enrolled at Saint Mary’s, a Catholic women’s college in Notre Dame, Indiana. Master of Public Administration from Southern Methodist University in 1976.)

In 1956, after passing the registered nursing exam and receiving her certification, she was hired as the first black nurse at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Dallas.

But hospital officials who hired her sight unseen were shocked to discover she was Black and withdrew their offer to provide a dorm room, she told The Dallas Morning News in 2020. They also had a white hospital worker who preceded her on rounds as a way to assure patients that she was qualified.

“That was honestly the most blatant, overt racism I have ever experienced in my life,” she said.

Nevertheless, she was promoted to head psychiatric nurse at the hospital and served in this role for sixteen years.

She had been concerned about racial inequality since childhood, when she met a black sailor who had been demoted to a canteen at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and became active in the civil rights movement.

She helped organize boycotts of retailers that refused to hire black workers. In 1972, under the guidance of Edward and Stanley Marcus, executives of the Neiman Marcus department store, she was elected to the Texas House of Representatives – the first black woman to win elective office in Dallas.

She left the Legislature in 1977 to serve as President Jimmy Carter’s regional director of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. In 1986, she was elected to the Senate, where she helped draft redistricting maps that helped her win a seat in Congress from the newly created 30th District in 1992.

She was said to be the first registered nurse elected to Congress.

In 2010, she was criticized for grants awarded by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation to four family members and to two children of a member of her staff, in violation of the group’s rules. She agreed to repay thousands of dollars in scholarships.

In 1956, she married Lacey Kirk Johnson, a teacher; they separated in 1970. In addition to their son, her survivors include three grandsons.

In a 1989 redistricting dispute, some civic leaders in Dallas insisted that racism was just one of many factors behind the apparent imbalance in political representation among black, Hispanic and white voters. Ms. Johnson, who had first-hand experience with racism, did not disagree.

“I’m afraid to see young people who believe that a racist power structure is responsible for everything that happens to them,” she told The New York Times.

When asked in the interview with The History Makers how she would like to be remembered, she replied: “As someone who remembered how she got there and what she went for. I worked hard to deliver what I could to the people I promised to represent.”