Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson (January 13, 1904 - March 22, 2010) is an American social worker, activist and writer. He received national recognition in 2009 when, at the age of 105, he went to Washington D.C. to attend the inauguration of US President Barack Obama.
Video Ella Mae Johnson
Biography
Initial life
Johnson was born Ella Mae Smith on January 13, 1904, in Dallas, Texas. He never met his father, and he became an orphan when his mother died of tuberculosis when he was four years old. He was raised by his neighbor, the Davis family.
She is her high school salutatorian, Dallas Color School High School.
Johnson was able to attend college through several scholarships and a job as a waitress at a YMCA teahouse, enrolling at Fisk University in 1921. As a student, he attended the opening address by W. E. B. Du Bois. He received a bachelor's degree in France from Fisk University, though he graduated six months later than expected after participating in a school semo boycott led by Du Bois.
After graduation, Smith moved briefly to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he worked for the Church of the Congregation. In 1926, he moved again to Cleveland, Ohio, to pursue his master's degree in social work at the Western Reserve Applied Social Science School, now called Case Western Reserve University. Smith is one of two African American students admitted to the school's social work graduate program every year.
Personal life
He married his first husband, Elmer Cheeks, an electrical engineer with Cleveland Municipal Light, in 1929. The couple had two sons, Jim and Paul Cheeks, during their 12-year marriage, ending with his death. He later married his second husband, Raymond Johnson, who worked as a probation officer at the Cleveland City Court. He also widowed from his second marriage.
Career
Johnson worked at Cuyahoga County Department of Welfare and Associated Charities of Cleveland, in a program that joins Aid to Dependent Children, an American federal government program. His work involves finding scholarships for low-income students and distributing financial payments to single mothers. Among the people he helped was Louise Stokes and her young sons, Carl Stokes and Louis Stokes. He retired in 1961 and began traveling, eventually visiting more than 30 countries, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, and Syria.
He moved to Judson at Circle University, assisted living facility, in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, in 1975.
Inauguration of Obama
Johnson gained national attention in 2009, when at the age of 105, he attended the inauguration of President Barack Obama in Washington DC Covered in sleeping bags and heavy clothing to guard against the cold temperatures, Johnson attended the inauguration with tickets provided by US Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. In several interviews, Johnson said of President Obama, "I find it very interesting and brilliant" and foreshadowing the future American woman president: "God will not give African-American men what he will not give to women."
Death and autobiography
Johnson died at Judson Park in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 22, 2010, at the age of 106 years. He survived his sons, James Cheeks and Paul Cheeks; his stepson, D. Wright Johnson; five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. He is the oldest African American alumni at Case Western Reserve University at the time.
Johnson's Autobiography, Good With My Soul: The Extraordinary Life of the 106-Year-Old Woman , which she wrote with author Patricia Mulcahy, was published posthumously by Penguin Books. Johnson's 203 page memoir, originally scheduled for release in May 2010, was moved to a new release date of March 31, 2010, due to his death.
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References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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