Civil Rights Icon and Beloved Aggie, Yvonne Johnson: A Life Truly Well Lived

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Dec. 9, 2024) – A woman who grew up in the community around North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, earned a master’s degree from A&T and became the first African American elected both to the Greensboro City Council and to the Greensboro mayorship has passed, and the Aggie family locally and nationwide are mourning her death.

Yvonne Jeffries Johnson ’78 died Wednesday, Dec. 4. Tributes have poured in over the past five days from scores of friends, including Congressional representatives, Guilford County and Greensboro officials and both North Carolina A&T and Bennett College, where she earned her bachelor’s degree. She was 82.

See services information for Johnson below.

Johnson’s illustrious life touched innumerable parts of the community. The daughter of a minister and niece of the first African American to earn a doctoral degree in dairy science, she spent her childhood on former North Carolina A&T university farm land. She graduated from Dudley High School in East Greensboro before going on to Bennett.

As a Bennett Belle, she took part in the historic sit-in demonstrations launched by the A&T Four that not only overturned a racist seating policy for the Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Greensboro, but served as a catalyst for public accommodations protections in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Johnson graduated from Bennett the same year that legislation was signed into law, and went on to earn an M.S. in Education with a concentration in Guidance Counseling from A&T.

In 1982, she founded a non-profit that provides court alternative programs and mediation for Greensboro youth facing legal trouble. More than 40 years later, One Step Further thrives as an integral part of juvenile services in the local criminal justice system, and Johnson served as its executive director until her death.

She was elected to the Greensboro City Council in 1993, rising to the role of Mayor Pro-Tem in 2001 as the first African American to hold that post. Her historic election as mayor in 2007 preceded by one year Barrack Obama’s election as the nation’s first Black president.

After her two-year term concluded, she returned to the City Council in 2011 where she remained until her death last week.

Johnson, who experienced segregation as a child and young woman and recalled “colored water fountains, colored bathrooms, sitting in the back of the bus, the whole nine yards,” she said in a 2023 interview. Her experiences then and immersion as a college student in civil rights advocacy drove her passion on the City Council, where she was a strong supporter of environmental and racial justice and community service to residents in need. A One Step Further colleague said Johnson initiated or collaborated with other agencies to launch more than 20 programs to serve area residents.

Beyond her professional work, she was heavily involved in volunteer service in numerous organizations, including the United Way Board of Directors, the Triad Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation and the Bennett College Board of Trustees, to name just a few.

Her leadership earned many honors over the years, notably the African-American Women of Distinction Award by the African American Atelier and the Gandhi, King, Ikeda Award for Peace from Morehouse University.

Services for Johnson are scheduled for this weekend. On Friday, city flags will be lowered to half-staff and the downtown Greene Street Parking Deci will be illuminated in purple in her honor. Visitation is scheduled from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Perry J. Brown Funeral Home, 909 E. Market St. in Greensboro.

A horse-drawn procession on Saturday will start at 11 a.m. from Perry Brown Funeral to Bennett College’s Annie Merner Pfeiffer Chapel. Her Celebration of Life Service begins at 1 p.m. (family visitation at noon) and will be streamed online at http://www.bennett.edu/live. Visitation is set for Friday, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., at Perry Brown.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donation may be made to Bennett in memory of Yvonne Jeffries Johnson ’64.