'Gentle leader': Long-time Memphis school board member Carl Johnson remembered for mentorship

Carl Johnson — the longest serving elected Memphis City Schools board member, a City of Memphis legislative affairs director, father, husband, brother, mentor, carpenter, teacher and scientist — died Dec. 26. He was 88.

When asked to speak about Johnson, nobody could sum up his life and impact briefly. His son said the 35-year school board veteran wore many hats and wore them well, and that he never stopped learning and dreaming. His daughter remembered him as a "gentle leader" who believed Memphis' success began with its schools.

His colleagues from his days on the school board remembered him as a "gentleman" and a "negotiator" who was soft-spoken, but firm in his beliefs. One of his mentees said he shaped Memphis' political landscape and had a "brilliant mind."

Born in South Memphis in 1935, Johnson spent his early years at Florida Elementary and then graduated from Booker T. Washington High School. He then enrolled at LeMoyne-Owen College and began studying biology before being drafted into the Army. He would spend two years in the Army as a laboratory bacteriologist before returning to Memphis and beginning to work at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, where he was one of the first Black individuals to work there.

Johnson would go on to teach science at Carver High School, would be the first Black man to teach at Southwestern College of Memphis, now Rhodes College, and be an instructional developer and the director of government relations at Shelby State Community College, now Southwest Tennessee Community College.

In 1972, he was elected to the Memphis City Schools Board. He would serve in that position for 35 years, serving a number of terms as the body's president.

During his early years on the school board, court-ordered school busing came to Memphis. Johnson had worked, and protested, alongside Maxine Smith for the desegregation of Memphis' schools. Johnson's son and daughter, Carl Johnson Jr. and Cerise Johns, were both part of the movement, with Johnson Jr. recalling his father encouraging him to take part in Black Mondays.

"There we these things called Black Mondays where they encouraged Black Memphians not to go to school until there was desegregation in the schools, or at least equity," Johnson Jr. said. "Consequently, Maxine Smith had the reputation of leading that effort, but of course, she couldn't do that alone."

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Johnson served long enough on the school board to see one of the kids from the cul-de-sac he lived in serve alongside him.

"Mr. Johnson was the kind of guy who would go all throughout the neighborhood cove to make sure he looked at all of our report cards," said TaJuan Stout Mitchell, who grew up in Johnson's neighborhood and would eventually serve with him on the school board.

"He would encourage us for scholarship, encouraged us to make good grades, encouraged us to go to college," she said.

Stout Mitchell also remembered Johnson as a school board member who wanted to promote vocational school as an equally important avenue for students to take.

Another school board member during Johnson's tenure, Lora Chilton, said Johnson would accept people for who they are and try to find common ground. Chilton also recalled Johnson being a calming presence during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

"He was always calm," she said. "We'd have parents come speak to the board and often there was a feeling of hysteria, because of course people are concerned about their kids. Nobody wants their children to be sick. But there was a hysteria around the issue, and he was always just very calm. He never bought into any of that. He didn't do any grandstanding. He was a calm listener and very reassuring to the parents and board members that we were going to address the problem. And when we addressed the problem, we were going to address it scientifically, and methodically and make sure every child was cared for properly."

After serving on the school board, Johnson was brought on to former Mayor Willie Herenton's administration as his director of legislative affairs. He served during Herenton's first term and retired in 2003. But that retirement did not push him from politics, and he would continue to mentor young officials like Tomeka Hart Wigginton, who worked on the school board, and Memphis City Councilman JB Smiley Jr.

"I think what people don't know, or don't talk about enough with Carl Johnson, was his role in the ultimate political climate in the City of Memphis," Smiley said. "Herenton was not the first choice to be the superintendent [of Memphis City Schools]. It was someone, I believe, from Michigan. There was pushback in the initial choice. So Carl Johnson led the efforts to recruit Dr. Herenton to be superintendent. So without Carl Johnson pushing for Dr. Herenton, the Memphis political landscape would be a lot different. I don't think we have Mayor Herenton if Carl is not pushing for him to be superintendent."

Smiley said he reconnected with Johnson in 2017 before launching a campaign for city council at the behest of his father, who was a long-time friend of Johnson's. According to Smiley, Johnson was an encyclopedia of Memphis history and would deliver lessons to him while doing other forms of work — mainly building things and repairing things.

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Building things, his daughter said, was Johnson's unique way of mentoring people.

"He will mentor in a different way," Johns said. "He'd say, 'Oh, let's build a shed.' And while you're building that shed with him, he's talking to you about whatever it is that you want to do. He's not one of the people that say, 'Let's go to dinner.' He would take you for a walk along the river, and while you're walking he's pointing out different plants, he's going to point out where old buildings are. The two of us, as well as my brother, are historians of the city and we take great pride in that."

Both Johns and Johnson Jr. said their father placed a priority on his family, was a man who loved his wife, and took more joy in the journey than the destination.

"He wasn't a person who liked to rush," Johnson Jr. said. "If we took a road trip — I'm one of those people to get where I'm going — he didn't mind stopping along the way and eating a meal. I really cherish some of the times that we did stop and do his thing: eat and spend maybe one night on the road."

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Even into his 80s, Johnson Jr. said his father was still learning. He said his father would learn new languages, like Russian and Spanish, and practice with neighbors who spoke the language fluently. That constant growth, he said, defined his father.

That growth, Johns said, was the topic of one of the final conversations she remembered having with her father.

"We need to grow," Johns recalled. "It's time for us to really grow and make changes. Hopefully, the time will be now because Memphis has always been on the cusp, but we have yet to make that giant leap like Nashville has, like Atlanta has. Hopefully, we will see that. Memphis has made a lot of strides, but we have not made that leap. He always felt that it was possible and not out of reach. Everything was possible because he said we have the talent here. That's one of the things he truly believed in."

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com, or (901)208-3922, and followed on X, formerly known as Twitter, @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Carl Johnson, longtime Memphis school board member, political mentor dies at 88