JOHN LEE JOHNSON: It is Johnny Lee Johnson.
MARKISHA MOTTON: What did you do, or do you do for a living?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I am a project manager, community advocate.
MARKISHA MOTTON: How long have you been doing this?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Since I was maybe 20, 21.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Is it what you wanted to do?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, that's a hard question. I've been doing
it for 40 years, so I guess it is what I wanted to do.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Why do you choose to do this?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, I think there was a need when I was
young, your age, I thought there was a need for many changes to
occur in my neighborhood, and there were very few people whom I
thought were working to make those changes. And I just assumed
that burden.
MARKISHA MOTTON: How did your education help prepare you for
what you wanted to do for a living?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: My education did not prepare me at all for
what I do.
MARKISHA MOTTON: How long have you lived in Champaign-Urbana?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I've lived here all my life. I was born in
1941.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Did you live in a mixed or segregated
neighborhood?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I lived in a segregated neighborhood, but
there were some non-African-Americans who lived in the
neighborhood. Our neighborhood was basically developed just
before World War I, and there were still some whites who lived
in the neighborhood when I grew up, but very few white families
lived in our neighborhood.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Did you choose to live here?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: It was not my choice. I mean, this is where my
mom and my dad lived, and so, this is where I lived. I chose to
stay here. Since I became a man, I've chosen to stay here, but
they decided to live here, and I had to live where they lived.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Did you attend church? Which one?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: We attended Pilgrim Church, and we later
joined Greater Hope Temple Church in Urbana, which I'm a member
of that church now.
MARKISHA MOTTON: What role did church play in your life as a
child and now?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, church was just a place that my mom said
I had to go. So it wasn't that it played any role in my life
other than a place that I went with my parents. Later on I
understood that church was to provide a spiritual guidance for
me. I think that God plays a stronger role in my life than the
church does.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Did your church, as a child, ever say anything
about racism or prejudice?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No, I came up in the '40's and '50's, and that
was not a topic of the sermons when I came up. We accepted our
neighborhood for what it was. I don't recall any racial
discussions in our church at all.
MARKISHA MOTTON: What school did you attend, and were they
integrated or segregated?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I attended schools in Champaign in my
elementary and middle school years, and I ended up at the Urbana
school district-all of my elementary school years were
segregated schools. My middle school was a segregated situation.
When I went to high school-I went to high school in Champaign,
and that was integrated. And my middle school as well as my high
school was integrated in Champaign. And I ended up from the
Urbana High School, which was an integrated community.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Were your elementary schools and middle
schools-and what middle school did you attend in Champaign?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, I attended Lawhead Elementary School,
Willard School from, I believe, 5th or 6th, and I went over to
Champaign Central -what do they call it? Champaign Jr. High
School, I believe they call it. And I left Champaign just as
Champaign Senior High School was being converted to Edison Jr.
High, and Champaign Jr. High was being converted to Central
High.
MARKISHA MOTTON: What school experiences were life shaping or
life changing for you?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, none of them, except probably my first
year in Urbana as a junior, when I took a test, and I did
horribly on that test. And one of the retiring white teachers
asked me to stay after class, which I did, and she went over the
test and just showed me how horribly I did on the test, and
reminded me that I had very little time left at school, and I
needed to get myself together if I was going to be able to do
anything as an adult.
MARKISHA MOTTON: How did that make you feel as a person or as a
young child?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, it made me feel that I had wasted all of
my educational experience, and that I had very little time to
make up. And I set about trying to make up that time as best as
I could.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Were there places where you felt discriminated
against? In your schools, on the buses, in the classrooms, by
teachers, by classes you weren't allowed to take, et cetera?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, I came up at a time in a segregated
school system, and we didn't ride buses. We walked to our
schools. Our schools were in our neighborhoods. When I did move
to Urbana, Urbana was more than a mile and a half from my home,
but we caught the city bus. We did not catch a school bus. And
all of the kids that caught the bus from our neighborhood were
African-Americans. We were not an integrated bus ride of
children. When I got to the schools, the schools in Urbana were
integrated. There was no discriminatory experience that I felt
in the schools that I attended in Champaign, at the elementary.
[inaudible] all black, so there was no question of
discrimination there.
MARKISHA MOTTON: What kind of grades did you get when you went
to an all black school? Did your grades change when you went to
integrated schools?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I don't remember grades. I don't think I did
that well. And the reason I don't think I did that well is
because I think that was reflected when I got to Urbana High
School, and I took a test in world history, and I didn't do
well. So clearly, if I would go back and examine my transcripts
from my elementary years in Champaign, they would not show at
that time that I would be who I am at this day. So I don't think
I did great. I was always a talkative kid in class, and I always
had something to say. But I don't remember my transcripts. It's
been a very long time ago.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Were there things that happened to you at
school that shaped your view of people of other races?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No, race was not a conscious issue for me.
When I went to school, I didn't dwell on the colors of kids.
Kids were kids. Early, as I indicated, I went to school with all
African-American kids. When I did go to school with
non-African-American kids, I didn't run around calling them
strange names, and they didn't call me strange names. We were
there. I was conscious of the fact that the community consisted
of other people other than myself. We knew that there were white
people who lived in Champaign and in the Champaign-Urbana area.
I knew that when I left the secondary school system and went to
the middle school in Champaign, we knew there were white kids in
the middle schools. We knew that. When we did come to the same
common building, we didn't run around insulting each other and
calling each other by bad names. We didn't do that. That was a
different time, a different era. Children didn't-at least we
didn't do it. That doesn't mean there weren't fights, but there
was not racial hostility that existed between us because we were
different colors.
MARKISHA MOTTON: What school experiences shaped your
understanding of segregation and integration?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: None of my school experiences shaped any one
of those issues. I was too young for Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas to
really understand the significance of it. My shaping of racial
differences much later in my life than it did in my elementary,
middle, or high school. In my elementary time in my life, I did
have-there was one white family that lived on the fringe of our
neighborhood. We befriended one another. I spent a great deal of
time in their home. They treated me as though I was their kid.
So I didn't make any racial distinctions. I think one experience
that stands out in my mind, we were coming from, I believe,
Champaign Jr. High School one day. And we were walking home,
just walked home, and we passed an elderly white man in his
yard, gardening, and he said it's gonna rain today. It was very
sunny. And we didn't understand the significance of that. I
guess he was inferring that we were black kids walking by and
that suggested to him that it was gonna rain. That was the only
probably discriminatory thing that ever happened to me in my
experiences in elementary and middle school.
MARKISHA MOTTON: When that happened, how did that make you feel
as a child? Did you tell your parents?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I thought he was stupid. It didn't make me
feel any way. I mean, my family did not discuss prejudice. My
mother and father never told us we were different, never told us
that we were to be treated differently. That was not a
discussion that went on in our home. We were children, and we
were treated as children. And the expectations of us were not
different from anyone else because we were black. My dad was a
World War I veteran. My dad came to this county in a covered
wagon, so we were very proud of our history. And that time, when
I was born, my family had a long political history in the
affairs of Champaign. So we were very proud of who were, and we
didn't go around saying that we were different people. That kind
of discussion didn't go on in our neighborhood.
MARKISHA MOTTON: So there were no schools that you had any
racial experiences?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Not in my elementary years. Our schools were
in our neighborhood. Our schools did not get torn out of our
neighborhoods until after Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas. And to
comply with that, the district tore all of the neighborhood
schools down in the northern part of the school district, which
were located in our neighborhood, and built schools in the south
and then bused us to those schools.
MARKISHA MOTTON: When were at middle school or high school, did
you have any racial --
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: That was an integrated setting. But remember
now, this is the '40's. This is the '50's. This is Champaign.
This is not Mississippi. This is not places like that. There
were a few incidents, but the atmosphere of our schools was not
overwhelmingly managed by the diversity among us. Our best
athletes were black. Our track stars were black. Our football
players were black. So it was that. We walked home because we
were not bused. That was just a part of what we did. When we
walked into the classrooms or walked in the halls, we didn't
agitate one another. We didn't enter into arguments with each
other. When I was in Urbana high school and we went to what was
called the student lounge, which was Black and white kids all
went there together. They danced together. That's '58, '59.
MARKISHA MOTTON: How did your teachers treat you?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, if I would make a comparison, my black
teachers didn't stay on my case-I didn't have a teacher always
on my back saying, "John, study your English more. Do your math
better." No, I didn't have that. The white teachers did not
treat me differently. I didn't feel any prejudice from my white
teachers. I felt, in retrospect, that my best teacher was Mrs.
Lawson, the old white lady who pulled my coattails and said,
"You're not doing good; you gotta do better if you're gonna
survive." That is the teacher who stands out and who has always
stood out in my mind, because Mrs. Lawson, in my opinion, was
honest with me. And she said, "John, you're not doing well." But
I only had Mrs. Lawson for what? One course, which was world
history.
MARKISHA MOTTON: And after that, there were no other teachers
that stood out before or after?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, I had teachers, but none of the
teachers, in my opinion, did that. I was kicked out of my
algebra class by my algebra teacher because I was in jail for
allegedly inciting a riot. So I flunked that course. But in
retrospect, I understood why Mrs. Deland had did that, although
I pleaded with her not to do it. But I don't think she did it
because I was black. She did it because I was out of school so
many days.
MARKISHA MOTTON: When you were supposed to be starting this
riot, how old were you then?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Maybe 16 or 17. I was arguing with a Champaign
police officer.
MARKISHA MOTTON: How did your classmates treat you? Did you get
along with other children?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: They loved me. I was a talkative kid. I made
jokes. I made everybody laugh. I was an artist. And I was just
adored by everybody in my school. Now it sounds funny, but
that's true. I was an exceptional kid when it came to my social
skills and getting kids to like me. Everybody thought I was a
great guy. They still do.
MARKISHA MOTTON: So that meant that you had white and black
friends? 'Cause I remember your saying that it didn't matter.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I had white friends at Urbana High School. I
had white friends at the time I was at Champaign High School.
But none of these kids lived in my neighborhood. We only saw
each other at school. And I had white friends. When I say
friends, friends are a lot of different things. I didn't go to
their home; they didn't go to my home. We would sit at the same
lunch table. We may talk to one another in class; we may walk
down the hall speaking to one another. But we didn't visit on
another. Our communities were separate. They may have got to
school the way they got to school. I got to school the way I got
to school. And after school, we didn't normally see each other.
I was not athletic. And all of the athletes in our school were
the champions, the guys of the school. And so, I was not that. I
was a different kind of guy. So when I say I had friends, I
considered those kids and the level of our relationships at that
time being friendly. We were not at each other's throats. They
didn't jump on me, and I didn't jump on them.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Why did you choose not to try to go over to
their homes and associate with them? Why did you feel that you
could only stay in your neighborhood and they could only stay in
their neighborhood?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: It wasn't a question of choice; it was just
something that we did.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Okay. And I remember you saying that you didn't
play sports. Why didn't you choose to play sports?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: 'Cause I was from a very large family, and all
my brothers played it. It wasn't safe for me to play, and I
wasn't any good at it.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Did you belong to any clubs?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No, I've never been a person who joined
things, so I was always a one-man band. I didn't join anything.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Okay. What did your parents talk to you about
when you were going to school? Did they have any expectations
for you to help you to achieve in school? And if not, why do you
think that they didn't help you to achieve?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, I'm from a family of 13 brothers and
sisters. We lived in a two-bedroom home. At one point, there was
21 of us who occupied this home in the northeast area of
Champaign. I came up in the '40's. In fact, I was born in 1941.
We spent a great deal of time simply trying to survive in the
winter and trying to have enough food in the summer. My mother
got us all up, made sure that we were clean and had clothes on
and sent us off to school. That was something we were not
allowed to do, which was to either be late or to skip school. We
had to go to school. That was something that was expected of us.
I came up at a time in which you did not question your parents.
You did exactly told you to do and when they told you to do it.
There was never any debate. There was no television to offset my
mother. We had one telephone, and we were not allowed to use the
telephone. We didn't have all the outside distractions that kids
have today. So you did what you were supposed to do. My tasks
were to make sure I made the fire in the morning, or if the fire
was still there, to bank it, to relight it, to make sure that
the house was warm when my sisters got up, to make sure that
when I came home in the afternoon, to get the wood in, to get
the coal in. It was cold in the wintertime. We had an outside
water pump. I would half to go about a quarter of a mile down to
a railroad crossing junction center and run water and bring the
water back home. And at night, me and my brother, we would go
down the railroad tracks, and we would try to pick up coal and
bring coal to make sure there would be coal to heat the house
and start the fire the next day. Those were the things that we
did. And in the summertime, we went and picked fruit. My mother
would can the fruit. We had to till the garden and things like
that.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Did you ever get help after school with
homework and things?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No, 'cause we mostly--I don't know if we
brought homework home. I could have brought homework home. I
don't know. It was a long time ago. I didn't prepare myself for
these questions. So I don't remember. Could have.
MARKISHA MOTTON: So your parents weren't the type that were on
you, making sure that you did what you were supposed to do
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: My mother was not on me in that sense. My
mother was my mother. We lived with our grandmother. My mother
obeyed her mother and obeyed her dad. We absolutely obeyed our
parents. So it wasn't a question of them being on me. It's just
a question--This is what you were to do, and you did it. There
was never any debate. We policed ourselves as children to make
sure that we did what we were supposed to do as kids. I don't
mean I was a perfect kid. I was not a perfect kid. That doesn't
mean I didn't get into trouble. I did get into trouble.
MARKISHA MOTTON: When you got in trouble, did you get punished
for that?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: You'd better believe I did. I got punished
three times: one by my older brother, the second by my mother,
and third by my dad. The worst punishment came from him.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Your father?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Yeah.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Did your school experiences in any way put up
roadblocks to your goals?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Yes, in retrospect I would say that my
elementary experience was probably not the best experience for
me. The neighborhood that I attended in my black community, it
could've been the teachers. When I think back, I wasn't quite
prepared to go into middle school as I should have been
prepared. And when I got into an integrated school setting, the
questions that were being asked of us, I thought the whites were
more prepared to answer those questions than I was. When I
thought about that, I realized that they may have came into the
classroom a little bit more prepared than I was prepared.
MARKISHA MOTTON: So you thought that the white children were a
little bit more prepared than you were?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: They were.
MARKISHA MOTTON: What caused that? Did they have better
teachers? Did they have better homes? What caused them to be
more prepared than you were?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: They had a better community from which they
came from. They had the facilities in that community that we did
not have. We did not have churches that had [inaudible] rooms
where kids could study. We didn't have libraries. We didn't have
recreational facilities in which these kinds of activities could
go on. As I said, we were 22 in a two-bedroom home. So we
clearly didn't have "study space" in our house. We ate in
shifts. I was, I think, 19 before I ever slept in a bed.
MARKISHA MOTTON: So was there any talk about racism between your
friends as you got older or your family as you got older?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No, my mother, up until my dad's death--my dad
was a bakery helper later on in his life, and one of the things
that he wanted to do was to buy a bigger home for, us and this
was, I think somewhere in what? '52 or '53. And the last living
white person in our neighborhood occupied the biggest house in
our neighborhood, and she was an elderly woman in her middle
80's, and her children were taking her with them because Mrs.
White could no longer live by herself. She walked over to our
home. We stayed almost across the street from her, and we were
sitting on the porch with our mother, and she said, "Mamie,"-my
mother was named Mamie-she said, "I'm gonna leave, and I'd like
to sell my home to you because you have the largest family in
this little neighborhood, and I know you would love to have more
space." And my mom asked her, "Well, Mrs. White, how much do you
want for the house?" And Mrs. White said-I believe she said she
wanted $3000 for it. And she said, "Well, I'll talk to my
husband when he gets home." So we were all happy, in a glow
because the house was for sale and we thought that our dad would
be able to get the $3000 from his employer, because in those
days we didn't go into banks. We had never been inside of a
bank, and banks were not the traditional places that black
people went at that time to borrow money. And so, when my dad
spoke with his employer, I happen to have been there that
Saturday, helping him to clean up the kitchen and all of that.
And I guess his employer told him no. But my dad came back in
the back room and was very angry, and I asked him what was it.
And he simply said no, he said nothing. But I found out later
that his employer told him no, he could not borrow the money
from him. And my mother told me what my dad had told her. She
had to tell us all that we would not be buying the house. Now I
don't know if my dad's employer told him no because he was
black. I don't think so, 'cause my dad had worked for him since
he came out of the first World War, and at that time he had been
with him over 40-some years. I think it was just the fact that
his employer was a Scrooge and just told my dad no. I don't
think he said no because he was black. My dad had worked for him
over 40 years. He said no. Clearly Mrs. White, the white woman,
was not discriminatory against us 'cause she offered to sell us
her home. We were not able to buy it. So even then my mom never
got us around the table and said, you know, "Harvey denied your
dad this loan because your dad is black." We were black. No. She
just told us that we were not gonna buy the house, and that was
the end of it. And we did not go into a discussion as to why.
But I did build my mother a house before she died, though.
MARKISHA MOTTON: You said that African-Americans didn't go into
banks. Why do you think that they didn't go into banks at that
time? Was it because they were black?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, no, that wasn't an absolute statement
that I made. I don't know. We never went into a bank, our family
never visited a bank.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Okay. So it was just mostly your family, not
all African-Americans?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, that was a very large statement, but if
I remember the quality of our neighborhood, the condition of the
housing, I would suggest that was probably a good bet, that 99%
of the people that lived in our neighborhood did not have either
equity loans or mortgage loans from any of the banks that were
downtown.
MARKISHA MOTTON: At any time in your life, did they ever talk
about racism or prejudice in your life? Did they talk about--
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: At any time in my life?
MARKISHA MOTTON: At any time in your life.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Yeah.
MARKISHA MOTTON: And what did they talk about? Were there any
stories that you remember?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: You mean, did my family ever talk about racism
and prejudice at any time in my life? Is that what you're asking
me?
MARKISHA MOTTON: I'm asking you at school.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: In school? No.
MARKISHA MOTTON: And in your house?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No.
MARKISHA MOTTON: At any time in your life?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Did they talk about any of the ongoing Civil
Rights battles to end segregation?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No, because earlier in my life I was engaged
in those battles myself, and there was no need for me to have a
discussion in school about it, and there was no need to discuss
it with my mom. When I was engaged in Civil Rights, my dad was
gone. These were not issues that I discussed with my mother.
This was a result of trying to have a better understanding of
the quality of life that we did not have for my neighborhood,
and why our housing stock was not better than what it was, why
we could not get loans and why we could not secure resources to
make improvements in our lives.
MARKISHA MOTTON: You said that you were in the ongoing civil
battles to end segregation. What role did you play in this?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Very little. I just felt that we were being
discriminated against. But even my concerns didn't grow out of
Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas. It grew out of the fact that we walked
too far to get to school. The schools in our neighborhoods were
torn down, that there ought to have been a better life and
experience. Now when I left Urbana High School after hearing
what Mrs. Lawson had told me, and when I thought about seriously
what she had said, I realized that I had indeed been cheated in
my early school years. And I did not want that to happen to any
other kid. So I set about trying to say to kids as soon as
possible that you must be mindful of what you're doing in
school, that you do not get cheated. But in the process of
wanting to say that to kids, I realized that schools had an
obligation equal to their obligation. And I began to confront
the school districts on what I felt they were not doing to help
kids understand their burdens. And soon after that, Brown vs.
Topeka, Kansas occurred. There was a community group formed in
Champaign to deseg Champaign schools. I think I argued against
that committee, but ultimately Champaign schools were desegged.
And I have continued to fight against the quality of education
being offered to African-American children since then.
MARKISHA MOTTON: What do you think about the way
Champaign-Urbana has desegregated their schools?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, I think that it is unconstitutional. I
have filed complaints to the federal government based on that.
When our school district and most of the school districts across
America responded to Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas, what our school
district did was they tore down all the inner city schools. They
tore down my beloved Willard Lawhead School. They tore down
Willard School. They built schools outside of our neighborhood,
and they forced the children that were in our neighborhood to
attend those schools so their children would not have to come
into our neighborhoods to attend schools. So all the school
sitings, the new construction that has occurred over the past 40
years all occurred in the southern part of our community, at a
time really in which there was no housing. When I was a kid,
Carey Busey was built on agricultural land. The south side was
built when there were no homes. These schools were all built in
undeveloped subdivisions and later on the homes grew around them
as they planned to not allow white kids to be bused into the
black community to have an integrated school system. The
strategy was simple. If we were to integrate with them, we would
have to come to their neighborhood to experience integration.
That occurred not only in Champaign. It occurred in Urbana. It
probably has occurred in every urban school system in America.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Okay. What did you know about the struggle to
integrate the schools that culminated in Brown vs. Board?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I knew nothing about it, simply because Brown
vs. Board of Education dealt with separate is not equal. I was
not dealing with school districts at that kind of political
level at the time of Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas. And my subsequent
arguments with the school district had dealt with the equal
protection clause of the state and federal constitution, but not
on the same basis as the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall argued to
the court on that case.
MARKISHA MOTTON: At what point in your life did you first have
the realization of Brown vs. Board of Education?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I don't know. In fact, I might not have ever
placed Brown vs. Board of Education in the practical sense in my
life. I reacted to what I thought to be poor educational
management, school policies coming out of our local schools.
That's what I've reacted to. I reacted to our own local school
data. At the time I was in school, I was in a segregated school
system. And I was not one of those people who argued against
desegging those schools. I was too young. My parents didn't do
that. So when I took on public schools, I didn't take on public
schools under Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas. I took 'em on on the
basis of equal protection clause of the State of Illinois
Constitution and the Title VI, Title VII Civil Rights Act of the
federal constitution.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Were there other people around you talking
about issues surrounding Brown vs. Board of Education?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Could have been. I don't remember them.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Did any of your schools change in any
meaningful way during the time you were in school?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Yeah, we ceased to go to all black schools,
and we were walking across the railroad tracks, down into town
to attend the white schools.
MARKISHA MOTTON: How can you tell there is a problem if you
don't have kids in the system today? What sources did you use?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, it's a misnomer for parents to believe
or for anyone to believe that you have to have a child in school
in order to have a deep, abiding interest about the performance
and the ability of schools to teach children. I was at one time
a student in this school and, therefore, a student in the
American public school systems. I look at data. I did have a
child-I do have a child who did attend the Champaign schools and
Head Start. My child is a grown man now. So he left. His last
schools years were at Evanston in Chicago. Most people who are
active in school politics today don't have children in school.
Most of the people who pay taxes to support the public school
systems don't have children in school. So to believe that one
has to have a child in school in order to have an interest in
schools simply doesn't match with the logic of the demographics
of this community and of our nation.
MARKISHA MOTTON: I asked you the question how do you know? What
data did you use?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I used school data.
MARKISHA MOTTON: What school data?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: You mean what data did I use from the schools?
MARKISHA MOTTON: Yes.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I used their data on achievement. I used their
data on discipline. I used their data on numbers of kids in
special education, numbers of kids in gifted programs. I used
that kind of data.
MARKISHA MOTTON: So do you feel like there are as many
African-American children in the honors programs, 'cause I'm an
honors students in the Franklin program at school. Do you feel
there are as many black kids?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No, there's not. In fact, one of the
complaints that we submitted to the federal government dealt
with the lack of African-American children in the honors program
as compared to their white counterparts. That issue was upheld
by investigation by the Office of Civil Rights, U.S. Department
of Education. It was also upheld by the federal court who
required the district to do another separate investigation. If
you look at the proportion--Do you know the proportion of your
race in the Champaign schools?
MARKISHA MOTTON: Actually, no.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Okay. About 35% of children who look like you
attend the Champaign schools. They are not 35% of the children
in the upper level classes looking like you. In fact, less than
1% of African-American children are in the upper level classes.
That disparity in those numbers are just not valid, 'cause they
don't make sense. You cannot have 85% of a 33% population of
something. Mathematically that doesn't make sense. Eighty
percent of your children in special education are
African-American, but yet 33% of the school population--It was
those kinds of disaggregate numbers, the information provided to
the federal government about the Champaign schools, that led the
government to do the investigation and rule in favor of the
black community.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Okay. In the honors classes that I am in, the
classes that I'm in the middle school, there are four black
people in our honors program, on my team.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Okay. And how many kids are in honors classes
at Franklin School?
MARKISHA MOTTON: Well, at Franklin School, I don't know. In our
classroom, there are about 24 kids, 30 kids, and four of them
are black. And I see that they work really hard. We take things
seriously. When there's homework due the next day, we try to get
that homework in. And then, when I go to my regular classes,
there's a lot of black kids in that class, but they don't take
their homework seriously. They think their homework is a joke.
Maybe that's why they aren't in the gifted program. Why do you
think that it's just because they're black? Maybe they're black,
but they're not trying as hard as the white kids are trying.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, I didn't say that. What I said was that
the data showed that the percentages of black kids that were not
in the classes were far less than the percentages of black kids
who attended the schools. I think to answer your question, I can
answer it this way: When I filed a complaint against local
banks, because I raised the question of why didn't black people
get loans from a particular bank, the bank officer responded to
me by saying, "They don't come in and make applications for the
loan. And so, therefore, Mr. Johnson, we don't discriminate
against them. They don't apply for it." My response to that was
this: How do you market your loans? Is your marketing plan such
that black people believe that this is a welcome place to come
in and make an application? Well, the answer to that question
was no, they didn't market anything to the black community. All
their marketing and advertisement was made to white people.
Everything that was in their marketing ads did not suggest that
this was a wholesome place for black people to come and borrow
money. Now conversely, let's look at-You're saying that the kids
in the math class don't do their homework and don't do this. The
school districts have the same responsibility as the lending
officers in the banks. And that responsibility-which is to make
the product that they're offering, if that product is general
math, algebra, geometry, whatever, attractive to their
customers. And if the kids don't believe that math is important
to them, then there's a failure somewhere by the math teachers.
There's a failure somewhere by the building support team.
There's a failure somewhere by the building principal. There's a
failure somewhere by the superintendent. There's a failure
somewhere by the board of education. What you can find, I think,
by looking at the school data in our school district and in the
Urbana School District, probably in most of the school districts
in our country, you find that this interest of children and
courses, you find that those courses are not marketed to those
children in a way that those children understand the importance
of those courses. There is this notion, I think, too often, by
school teachers, school administrators that schools have a
higher level of importance, and everybody understands it. That's
not true. Schools have different kinds of meanings to different
kinds of people, and if a particular kid doesn't understand that
meaning, he or she can't lock into that meaning, then school has
no value to them at all. So clearly, if kids are acting up or
not taking anything serious, such as math, nobody has explained
to them in a fashion that they can understand, that if you don't
know that there's four quarters in a dollar, you're never gonna
earn any money. And the failure, in my opinion, because I'll
tell you, when OCR, the Office of Civil Rights was doing the
review of the Champaign Board of Education on the complaint, the
review officers from the Office of Civil Rights office in
Chicago made it perfectly clear to the officials of Champaign
that their numbers didn't make sense. The school superintendent
at that time simply tried to defend the disaggregate numbers
between blacks and whites in the school district by saying we're
typical. I mean, what we're experiencing, they're experiencing
all over the State of Illinois. Their answer to the
superintendent at that time was, "Sir, that is not an answer."
My answer to the statement that you raised, that if there are
children in a math plan course anywhere in our school district,
any school district in America, who don't understand the
seriousness of that course, then the burden is not on those
children; the burden was on the school district to explain that
seriousness to them. If those kids don't understand it, the
failure is with the teachers, the building administrators, and
the central office. It's not with those kids. Those kids, when
they get grown, they're gonna want a car, they're gonna want a
home, they're gonna want a decent job like everybody else. And
you're not gonna be able to look them in the face and say,
"Little Johnny, you're not getting your car because you didn't
do your math. You're not getting your car because you didn't do
your math. You're not getting your car because you didn't take
geometry serious. You're not doing this because you didn't do
that." But what little Johnny is gonna do is take a gut, and
he's gonna shoot you. He's gonna break into your house and rob
you. What he's gonna do is sell drugs. He's gonna devastate your
neighborhood because of that. Now if we understand that this is
the price we will pay, because little Johnny is not taking math
seriously, then we, as the adults, will get in there and market
math to little Johnny in a fashion and in manner in which he can
understand it, that he will take it seriously. Another example
is that a friend of mine, a mother and father who founded the
new math here at the University of Illinois in 1949 and he got
his PhD in math here at the university, moved out to Berkeley,
California. He's white, Jewish. He married a black girl. When he
got out to the Berkeley school district he was teaching high
school math. And he found that there were no children of color
in the algebra program. And he asked the principal if he could
offer algebra to them. And he said, of course, yes. Peter went
and got a bag of dice and a deck of cards. Because he noticed
that the black kids and the brown kids loved to shoot dice, and
they loved to play cards. Those were the tools that he used to
introduce them to algebra and geometry. So it could be that the
reason that our children are not as interested in these subjects
as they ought to be was because we're not doing a good job in
connecting the value of education to an experience that they can
understand.
MARKISHA MOTTON: You said that the teachers or administrators
weren't doing something right to get these kids interested in
their schoolwork.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Yes.
MARKISHA MOTTON: These children that are in 7th grade, they are
12 and 13 years old. They know what's right from wrong.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: How do you know that?
MARKISHA MOTTON: I'm a 13-year-old, and I know what's right from
wrong.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: You're exceptional. We know from the school
experience, the codes in the Champaign schools and the codes in
the Urbana schools, we know from the incidents, you're just
experiencing a rash of bomb threats in Champaign schools.
Obviously anyone who [inaudible] of calling in a bomb threat is
understanding the legalities that they're facing if they're
caught doing that. That would not be logical if kids are doing
that. If kids are smoking dope. Illogical. Kids smoke
cigarettes. Illogical. I mean, I encountered a kid last night
who wanted me to go in and buy him a pack of cigarettes. I told
him that's against the law. Kids are constantly, at your age,
doing things that they don't have any business doing. So I would
say that overwhelmingly, you're an exception. Most of the kids
are not logical, do not understand right from wrong in a manner
that's good for them. And we're not quite sure if these values
are really being taught in their home strong enough to give
them, to shield them from any of the things that they're
encountering everyday in their lives.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Yes, that's exactly what I think, that the kids
aren't finding out from their parents what to do, because when
you come to school, there are teachers there, and those teachers
everyday, they are helping you to do your homework, telling you
what's right, and they are telling you that over and over and
over again. So these children evidently are not getting this
from their homes, and when they're not getting something at
home, they come to school and they act up. 'Cause there are
teachers in Franklin Magnet Middle School that I go to, they
tell you what to do every night, and if you need to talk to them
about anything, that you could that. And they're telling you
that this is important, when you get older, if you don't know
this stuff, you know, that you're not gonna have a car. So you
won't have to tell little Johnny that, you know, he can't get a
car.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: But the reality--
MARKISHA MOTTON: Teachers at Franklin, they're telling you that.
As a matter of fact, there's a teacher named Ms. Carroll, and
she's here, and she tells us over and over that if you don't do
this stuff now, this reflects your future. So I don't think your
statement is necessarily true, because these teachers are out
here telling these children this.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, I don't necessarily know that. I think
if you would look at the school data as I have looked at it and
if you would examine it as other professional people have
examined it for our community, they concur with me; they don't
concur with you. There is a school monitor who monitors the
Champaign schools, who is a resident of Boston University, who
is an expert in urban education, there's a federal judge that's
monitoring the Champaign schools based upon a complaint
submitted against the Champaign schools. What I'm telling you
has all been examined by a series of independent experts. None
of these people-not knowing you or knowing me, who all
concluded, by looking at the information compiled by our schools
that there was indeed an unconstitutional disadvantage for
African-American kids. I'm not suggesting that there isn't a
teacher or teachers who are not encouraging kids to do what they
ought to do. There are many educational experts that suggest
that the primary place of learning is not in the home. The
primary place of learning is in the public schools. Indeed, if
the public schools are to survive, they're gonna have to do a
better job in teaching young people like yourself, regardless of
their race. The school districts are fighting for their lives in
order to maintain their role as the central place of educating
American children. School teachers, to me, are simply not
getting it, that it is a struggle of their ability to produce a
product that is competitive, no different from the UAW worker
who is working for Ford, who has to compete with Toyota and
Lexus, no different from one airline competing with another
airline. You are a product. And if they're not producing more
products like you, they will go out of business. The tragedy
facing urban and rural poor children is that what happens to
them when the public schools go out of business. But that's not
an explanation, or at least the explanation is not satisfactory
when one says, "I tell them. I tell them." Give kids more than a
one or two-dimensional explanation. Show them as much as
possible that what education means in their success. And if
they're not getting it, you go down fighting. That's all I can
tell you. What I can tell you and tell you honestly, because
this is happening, that the data reflected in the Champaign
schools today does not fair well in the ability of the Champaign
schools to deliver a better product represented yourself.
MARKISHA MOTTON: There's been a lot of talk about the
African-American children. Have you went and did studies on the
Caucasian students or how much the [inaudible] on them,
detentions, expulsions?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: All of the comparisons made in the Champaign
schools and the Urbana schools are made on their nearest
counterpart, and their counterpart are white. There is a growing
brown population, but that population has not started to grow
until the last couple of years. And the data on them is not
sufficient in order to make the comparisons. So all comparisons
of learning that have been made in the Urbana and the Champaign
schools were made between black and white kids. In California,
it would be made between other groups of children, but right now
it's made between black and white children.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Okay. I have one more last question for you.
What has changed since you were a child in a big way, besides
the riding on the bus?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: My community I live in. It's no longer a
ghetto. It is a decent place to live. The banking community, I
sued 'em all. We can now get loans from banks. Our school
districts are changing because we now have one of them under the
watchful eye of the federal court. And we now-I think everyday
it's getting the consciousness of the other one. The University
of Illinois, Uni High School, they realized that you cannot have
a public school managed by the university and discriminated
against people of color. A lot of things are changing, but yet
there are many things that are staying the same. Progress,
although significant in some areas, we're losing ground 'cause
we're not educating as many children as fast, as rapidly as we
ought to and that maybe we could. So there are day to day
fights. I mean, nothing has come to a conclusion. I mean, when I
die, these fights will still be here. They will be there for
you.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Well, I did say that was the last question.
That's not the last question; I have one more. The Uni High
School, what makes you think-You have to take a test to get in.
So what makes you think that a lot of black students don't get
in that apply?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, let me answer this by this: When you're
dealing with institutions like a public school system, like a
university, like a city government, there are legal procedures
by which you must follow. You just simply can't call in a
charge. You can't write a simple letter and make allegations.
You must have strong housing information, attendance data. You
must have data to show the processes by which a kid is accepted
or rejected. When we submitted the complaint to OCR against Uni
High, we had that data. When we submitted the complaint against
the Champaign schools, we had 5 years of accumulated data. When
we submitted the complaint against the Urbana Schools, we had 4
years of accumulated data. That's 5 years of African-American
children in special ed; 5 years of African-American children
being expelled; 5 years of African-American children being
mandatorily assigned, being bused, attending schools without
choice. All of these things were there. The government did not
conclude that even that information was accurate. Despite the
fact that it was from the school district, in the examination
they found it--They sent in independent reviewers to test that
information. And it was from those independent reviewers who
verified the information that the government concluded that the
complaints were valid. When we filed the complaint against Uni
High, the Office of Civil Rights, the U.S. Department of
Education, did a thorough investigation of Uni High and
concluded that 10 years of the housing information, that's 10
years of attendance of children at Uni High, there was not a
justification for less than 6% of those kids to be
African-American when over 35% of the kids were in their
recruiting pool.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Well, I want to thank you for this lovely
interview.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: It's been lovely. Thank you for having me.
MARKISHA MOTTON: Thank you.
Q: I would like to ask a question.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: It's alright. I mean, it's all the same thing.
Q: Did you know your pastor well?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Yes. I don't know how to define "well". I
mean, I knew who pastor was. But there was a line that you
didn't cross with ministers when I was a kid.
Q: Did the teacher who sat you down and told you about your
test, was she one of the teachers that you well respected?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I think that I began to respect Mrs. Lawson
for her being honest with me. And in retrospect, I think of my
educational experience, she stands out as one of the best
teachers I ever had.
Q: Did you respect the way that your parents brought you up?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Oh, I loved my mother and father. I thought
they were great people. My mother was a fabulous cook. She made
do on very little. She carried herself in a manner to show
respect of her as our mother and respect of her as our mother
and respect of our father.
Q: Was there ever a time in your life that you disliked
[inaudible]
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No. I tried to live in a way to honor my
parents. And what my mother and father did not have, was not
their fault. And I tried to make sure that other parents could
have what my mother and father did not have. And as I indicated
earlier, my dad was a World War I veteran, was a well respected
person of our community. So was my mother. My mother was a great
singer who everyone asked to sing. She sang at social events:
weddings and funerals. We were a well respected family, and we
still are. I think when -although my name--People know John Lee,
but I think it's the Johnson I think that people know more than
they know of John Lee.
Q: Okay. Earlier you said that in school people liked you and
you were popular.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: You found that hard to believe?
Q: No. Was there ever a time when you felt that being popular
and impressing kids was more important than doing like
assignments?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No, well, when Mrs. Lawson pulled my coattail,
this is what I had done: I went and I took sociology, economics.
I took algebra. Other than the courses that were given to me.
Okay? Because she said that I had very little time to do that. I
enjoyed the classroom debates that we had. Roger Ebert and I
were students together, sitting across from one another in
sociology. We know each other. When he comes to town, he knows
me and I know him. There were many people who are in leadership
positions in the Champaign and Urbana areas that I was in school
with. No, I was not a class clown. I didn't disturb the class or
any of that. When we had classroom discussions, I enjoyed
challenging everybody with what I knew and I took great pride in
trying to study to stay ahead of the class, read chapters ahead.
And when the teacher would ask who knows this, I'd always try to
say I know it. You know? I had fun everyday arguing history,
sociology, and economics and all that with the kids I went to
school with. They'd come to respect that. And then, I was an
artist. Kids thought I was very good as an artist. My stuff hung
in the hallways of Urbana schools and that kind of stuff. I was
a poet, so I wrote poetry to them and all of that kind of stuff.
So I wasn't a kid that got up and did foolish things and pranks
and all of that. My parents only had to come to school once
about me in my whole educational experience, and once was
enough. My dad whooped my butt in front of my class. He never
had to come back again. Now they can't do that now. But that
was--My parents only came to my school once.
Q: Okay. Did you feel this confident all your life? Was there
anybody in your life who ever like tried to bring you down?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: You think I sound confident?
Q: Yes.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Well, I think what you're hearing is
experience. I know so many things because I had the pleasure of
doing so many things, doing so many things for my community. And
from each one of these tasks that I took on for them, it has
enlightened me, and from that enlightening--that's part of my
problem with a lot of people, that they think I'm overconfident.
They think I'm a show-off. No, I'm not overconfident and I'm not
a show-off. It's just that I've torn down my community and I've
rebuilt it. I've been a person that did not wait for people. I
always did what I thought was appropriate to do. Now the
challenge, I think, facing you is where's the next me at. Now I
know how I got to be me. The question facing you and your
colleagues is how will you get to be me?
Q: Okay. Do you think children--
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Do you understand what I'm saying?
Q: No. Are you saying that we wanna be like you?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: No. No. No. I'm saying who will next defend
the community. Now you may not think I've defended it. That's-
Q: Yes, you have.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Okay. Who will do that next? Who will take on
all of the multiple challenges? And there are gonna be more
multiple facing you than facing me. The challenges facing you
will be far greater than the challenges facing me. So who's
gonna do that? Who's gonna wake up one day and fall in love with
their community that I fell in love with and who will not wait
to hear a set of drums from someone else, but who will get out
and do what they have to do?
Q: Yes. Do you feel children today need more discipline in their
life?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I think children today need more love. Too
much TV, too much BET, too much pop music, too much any and
everything to distract them. But there's no single answer for
it. I mean, any kid who can cite any song tells you that's an
intelligent kid. Kids who come to school today and I don't' even
know who the current artists are by name. When I grew up, we had
Miles Davis; we had those people. We had our own distractions.
When I was over in Urbana High School, we had the Everly
Brothers, "Here Comes Kathy." We danced, we sang to all of that.
But we didn't have all of the [inaudible] distractions that you
did. There were kids that took drugs when we were in school. But
everybody didn't have drugs like you have today. A few kids got
pregnant, but everybody didn't get pregnant. I don't mean that
literally, that kids are getting pregnant today. So what do kids
need? They need an umbrella approach. Everybody is saying the
same message to them. Now this is important. The reason this is
important is that because for the first time, the nation can
replace you, you two guys. And they can replace you by allowing
new people to come to this country, people who are eager to be
here, people who are eager to learn, people who are eager to
work. So there's no longer a battle between whites and blacks.
Now the battle is between all different kinds of races of
people. For the first time in the history of America, we are no
longer the second most important group of Americans. Hispanic
people are the second most important group of Americans.
Tomorrow it could be someone else. So you're gonna have to
rediscover yourselves. So it's no longer fighting the prejudice
that may be there between whites and blacks. It's now gonna be
the prejudice that [inaudible[ people. No one ever told us that
we were second class people, that we were to be different. No. I
mean, and as I followed my journey through life, I have no
regrets for who my parents are, no regrets for the history and
the legacy of my race of people. I think my people have made
tremendous contributions not only to America, but to the world.
We survived slavery, and there are very few groups of people who
can say that and say it in a manner in which we can say it.
Q: When you were younger like around our age, what--
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I don't remember when I was your age. Too long
ago.
Q: Well, when you were younger, what was your goal in life?
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: I think I defined my goal when my dad told my
mother that his employer would not loan him the $3000, and my
mother was sitting on the porch and she was crying. And I asked
her what was the matter, and she said, "I just wish I had more
space for you." And I said, "I'll get you that space," and I
did. That was probably the most defining moment in my life.
Q: Thank you.
JOHN LEE JOHNSON: Thank you. Is that it?
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