By Jamie Landers, Maggie Prosser and Gromer Jeffers Jr.
President Joe Biden joined congressional Democrats, local officials and other mourners Monday evening to honor former Dallas congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, the pioneering Black legislator who spent decades as North Texas’ most powerful Democrat.
About 1,500 people filled Concord Church’s main sanctuary, including Dallas City council members and U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., as Johnson’s family processed into the sanctuary, where they were met with handshakes and hugs from officials.
A slew of speakers offered brief eulogies, describing Johnson as a graceful, passionate and exemplary leader. She was immortalized as a mentor to many and as a politician who worked across party lines to better the lives of constituents.
”One of the things she taught me: ‘Don’t focus on the title, focus on the work,’” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said.
Johnson’s funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at Concord Church. She’ll be buried Wednesday at Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Jenkins said he ordered flags to be flown at half-staff Monday and Tuesday during Johnson’s memorials.
”She taught me that the fight for good is rarely easy, but it is always right,” Jenkins said, adding: “She was a true legend.”
Nevada congressman and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, presented Johnson’s family with a resolution honoring her lifetime of service.
”Words cannot express the profound sadness that we have felt in recent days,” Horsford said, “but this is also a time to remember and to celebrate a giant, a true trailblazer in Dallas, in Texas and our entire country.”
Biden entered the sanctuary just after 7:50 p.m. and greeted Johnson’s family, who were seated in the front row, shaking hands and offering words before looking over the casket with South Carolina Democrat Rep. Jim Clyburn as acoustic hymns played in the background. Biden clasped his hands before raising his right hand to his mouth and placing it on the edge of her casket, just below a bouquet of yellow roses.
Johnson and Biden were friends for decades, and she was instrumental in his critical victory in the 2020 Texas presidential primary, when Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders were locked in a close race for Texas and its bounty of delegates.
Before Biden entered the sanctuary, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said Johnson helped “mold” a president, a reference to Johnson’s support, which helped propel Biden to victory with critical support from Black and women voters in North Texas.
The president left about five minutes later, waving to Johnson’s sorority sisters. After his departure, people started to leave, prompting church leaders to interject, saying the services weren’t yet over.
Monday’s remembrance began shortly after 8 a.m. when Johnson’s body arrived at Fair Park’s Hall of State in a white hearse, her casket visible through a window as rain fell.
The casket, stark white with iridescent features along the handles, was carried up the building’s front staircase and into the Great Hall before it was displayed, open, under the hall’s medallion. Johnson was dressed in a signature black St. John’s blazer, paired with a red, white and blue scarf.
John Beckwith Jr., owner and director of Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas, called it an honor to serve Johnson and her family.
“I’ve known her my entire life — I was born and raised in her district in Oak Cliff,” Beckwith said, adding that Johnson “transformed” the district by helping to improve its schools and especially its transportation by overseeing the implementation of DART and a rail system.
“She was able to take care of us in the neighborhood and make sure we had the funds we needed to be better,” he said. “But not only that, she made herself available to us. She never lost sight of the people she was there to serve.”
As Johnson lay in state, people approached one by one, sobs at times echoing through the hall. Some bowed and saluted. Some took a moment to sit solemnly in the grand room, while others merely passed through. By mid-afternoon, nearly 800 people had visited to pay their respects.
Rosie Pleasant, 74, said Johnson’s ex-husband Lacey Kirk Johnson was her eighth-grade algebra teacher. Pleasant, of Lancaster, said she followed Johnson’s political career for decades.
When asked what Johnson’s legacy meant to her, Pleasant said: “The impact she just had on the community, trying to better things for people of color — that’s what I most admire about her.”
Pleasant hopes younger generations, because of EBJ’s impact, “recognize the importance of voting and having a voice.”
Dale Robinowitz, “Dr. Dale,” was Johnson’s dentist, and described the congresswoman as a doting, smart woman who didn’t “show off” her political power.
“She just wanted everybody to be happy,” said Robinowitz, a Republican. “It’s hard for me because I’ve never met anybody as wonderful as she was.”
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who Johnson endorsed as her successor in District 30, described Johnson as the “epitome of elegance and intelligence,” and a role model for “little girls that look like her.” She added: “I strive to be that type of example.”
“It was one thing when I won the election and the torch had technically been passed,” Crockett said. “It’s another thing for her to literally be gone now and not be there for me to call upon if I need her and to kind of glean any type of advice that she has.”
State Rep. Julie Johnson said she considered the late congresswoman a mentor and the “ultimate trailblazer,” particularly for women. The Farmers Branch Democrat is vying to fill Colin Allred’s seat in District 32 seat in the U.S. House.
“Women are excellent public servants and can get a lot done and she’s an example of that,” Julie Johnson said. “I hope that a lot of other women will follow in her footsteps.”
Born in Waco in the segregated South, Johnson left Texas in the early 1950s to get a nursing certificate at St. Mary’s College in Indiana. She would later earn a bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University and then a master’s degree from Southern Methodist University.
SMU President R. Gerald Turner and other school officials paid their respects Monday afternoon. Turner and Johnson worked together on many projects throughout his tenure as university president, he said.
“The great thing about her is if it made sense for Texas, it made sense for her people in her district, then she was all in,” Turner said. “There wasn’t a lot of ego. … It’s wonderful to have a congressional leader like that.”
Shortly after 3 p.m., funeral home staff carried Johnson’s casket out of the Hall of State and into the hearse. A procession of more than a dozen cars and a Greyhound bus filled with Johnson’s family began the 10-mile trek to Concord Church in Red Bird, escorted by police.
Crowds were filtering into the church as early as 4 p.m., including Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority alumna dressed in all white — ritual outfits the sisters wear in memoriam. In anticipation of the president’s arrival, attendees underwent stiff security protocol: Purse searches, metal detectors and dog-sniff inspections.
Monday night, Michael Waters, lead pastor of the Abundant Life African Methodist Episcopal Church, delivered an emotional address and rallied people to take up Johnson’s fight.
“Congresswoman Johnson courageously confronted, overcame and transformed America, making sure that the most marginalized and vulnerable citizen had a voice and a friend in Congress,” Waters said. “She admonished us to finish the work, she fought her good fight, she finished her cause, she kept the faith and she tells us to finish the work. We’ll keep fighting. We’ll keep working. We’ll keep pressing for justice.”
trailblazing public servant and the first registered nurse elected to Congress, Johnson died Dec. 31 due to a post-surgery infection.
Before serving in public office, Johnson was a civil rights activist with a thriving nursing career. She was the first Black person to serve as chief psychiatric nurse at Dallas’ VA hospital.
Her 50-year career in electoral politics included stints in the Texas House and Senate, where she broke barriers often faced by women and minorities. Johnson was the first Black person from Dallas to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction.
Elected to the Dallas-anchored District 30 in 1992, Johnson focused much of her attention on delivering resources to North Texas, particularly for transportation, infrastructure and flood control projects. She promoted science, technology, engineering and math education and shepherded major funding for science and technology, including NASA. Johnson was instrumental in securing tens of billions of dollars to revive the U.S. semiconductor chip industry.
The once-segregated Union Station in downtown Dallas bears her name, as does the Eddie Bernice Johnson STEM Academy in Wilmer.
“She gave Dallas all she had,” said her son, Kirk Johnson.
The circumstances behind Johnson’s death are controversial.
Her family intends to sue Baylor Scott & White Health System, alleging her death was caused by negligent care at the hospital’s rehabilitation center. After back surgery, Johnson was sent to Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation. In September Kirk Johnson said he found his mother alone and in pain. A news release announcing the family’s intention to bring a lawsuit states she was “lying in her own feces and urine,” which they contend led to the lumbar spine infection that killed her.
In a statement last week, Baylor Scott & White said: “We are committed to working directly with the Congresswoman’s family members and their counsel. Out of respect for patient privacy, we must limit our comments.”
This story will be updated throughout the day on Monday.
