Rita C. Johnson, Baltimore City social worker for nearly 3 decades, dies
Rita C. Johnson, whose career as a social worker with the Baltimore City Department of Social Services spanned nearly three decades, died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease Dec. 1 at Montgomery Hospice in Rockville. The Randallstown resident, who earlier had lived in Morgan Park, was 88.
Rita Claudette Soden, daughter of Ernest Soden Sr., a World War II Bethlehem Steel Corp. shipyard worker, and Margaret Soden, an Enoch Pratt Free Library secretary, was born and raised in Baltimore.
She was a 1953 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School who went on to the old Cortez Peters Business School and the University of Baltimore.
Mrs. Johnson began working for Baltimore City in the early 1950s in the Municipal Building downtown.
“She was hired as a secretary with high marks from Cortez Peters, but they kept asking her only to get coffee,” said a daughter, Roslyn Joy Johnson, of Burtonsville, who is director of Annapolis Recreation and Parks.
“She was one of the first to integrate the Municipal Building as a city employee and often talked about her experiences with Jim Crow laws. When she got on the elevator, all of the white people got off,” Ms. Johnson said.
“When she was in the bathroom, the white women whispered while pointing at her, ‘Don’t go in that bathroom, she’s been in there,’ and Rita being who she was, responded, ‘I’ve been in ALL of them,’ forcing the women to go to another floor to use the restroom,” her daughter said.
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She added: “Despite the daily challenges, she was steadfast in helping provide for her family. She was proud to have attended the March on Washington in 1963, and one of her most memorable events was casting her vote for Barack Obama, our first African American president. She never thought she’d see that in her lifetime and was very excited when he won.”
In 1971, Mrs. Johnson joined the Department of Social Services, now the Department of Human Services, where she was a social worker until retiring in 1997.
Mrs. Johnson was married in 1958 to Frederick A. Johnson, an educator, and settled in Morgan Park before moving to Randallstown, where they lived for 40 years.
She was a longtime member of Union Baptist Church, where she sang with the senior choir and was a member of the Women’s Month Committee and the Gertrude Neal Circle.
Her church work resulted in numerous awards.
For more than 25 years, Mrs. Johnson was an active member of the Epsilon Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in Baltimore, family members said, and keeper of attendance at chapter meetings.
She was in many social clubs, including The Career Girls, which teaches young Black women etiquette skills; the Douglass High School Class of February 1953 alumni association; and the Golden Girls, a group of lifelong friends who traveled and vacationed together.
For more than 40 years, she was a member of The Penny Pals, a Pokeno card group, that included women from Mrs. Johnson’s days living in Morgan Park.
They meet once a month and Mrs. Johnson’s month to host was October. She would decorate her home for Halloween and “served whiskey sours,” said her daughter, whose role was to cater the gatherings.
She wrote short stories and poetry, earning the name “Family Poet,” her daughter said. One of her poems was “Christmas Is Not The Same For Your Dad And Me, You See.”
“The poem was written after her two daughters graduated and left the homestead,” Ms. Johnson wrote in an email. “Her sister Shirley recalls one of her favorite poems about their sisterhood, ‘Never a Distance That We Couldn’t Call.'”
A music lover, she had tastes that ranged from classical to opera, rhythm and blues, and soul.
She and her husband, a Baltimore County Public Schools history teacher who died in 2004, enjoyed traveling and had visited Brazil, Argentina, Machu Picchu in Peru and Colombia.
“Family was very important to her and she was actively involved in helping people. That’s what she was known for. And she also loved telling funny stories,” Ms. Johnson said.
Funeral services were held at Union Baptist Church on Dec. 16 with interment at Arbutus Memorial Park.
In addition to Ms. Johnson, she is survived by another daughter, Kay Claudette Johnson, of Bethesda; a brother, Dr. Cylburn Soden Sr., of Silver Spring; a sister, Shirley Briscoe, of Ashburton; and several nieces and nephews.
