Dr. Josie Johnson reflects on Cecil Newman, the Black press and a life of advocacy

As the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder celebrates its 92nd anniversary, few living voices carry the memory of its founding era like Dr. Josie Johnson.

Deep Roots in Minnesota’s Civil Rights Movement

Johnson, widely known as the “first lady of Minnesota civil rights,” was born in Texas and raised in Houston before moving to Minnesota in 1956. She said she has known the Newman family, including MSR founder Cecil Newman, for most of her life in the state.

“We all grew up knowing Cecil and his whole family, and every step of the way of the newspaper, and being a part of it,” Johnson said. “It was a good feeling of being a part of such an institution that wrote stories and told history and published those histories and stories in a newspaper. We could see that and feel that the newspaper gave us the sense that we were all together.”

Building a Community from the Ground Up

Johnson recalled that when she arrived, Minnesota’s Black community was small but close-knit.

“We weren’t that many people in Minnesota in the first place,” she said.

“There were people who didn’t know anything about African Americans, even though they were African American, and many did not know the history of African American people in this part of the world. So it was a learning for us all. Here in Minnesota, Black Americans seemed to have taken a great sense of pride in being here and developing a community, and I think we did.”

A Shared Bond with Founder Cecil Newman

Johnson said her friendship with Newman began through her early civil rights work, including fights over school desegregation, at a time when the two were close in age and equally embedded in the community.

“We’d been friends forever because we were around the same age, geographically, emotionally, mentally, and involved in the community,” she said.

“It was a feeling that you had some right and authority to talk to the paper person, and that you were being heard and listened to. For me it was a growing-up feeling, that people you knew were people who ran important things like a newspaper.”

She said the Spokesman-Recorder played a central role in her decades of advocacy by giving the Black community control over its own narrative.

“The paper was critical and very important to what the community was doing in getting a sense of control over what was going on in our community, telling the story, making sure the story was told correctly, and that we, as a Black community, got the proper acknowledgement and recognition of things that were going on,” she said.

Why the Black Press Outshines Mainstream Media

Asked what she has learned about the power of advocacy and speaking up fearlessly for the underserved, Johnson pointed back to that same sense of closeness.

“I’ve had the privilege of being involved in my community forever, so it’s not like being introduced to the community, or the community being introduced to me. It is a closeness,” she said. “I knew Cecil and his family forever. That is that spirit of togetherness and respect for the struggle of our people in the community.”

Asked what stood out most from that reflection, she agreed it came down to relationships. “Relationships, absolutely,” she said.

Asked how the importance of the Black press has carried into today, Johnson pointed to those same personal relationships as what sets it apart from mainstream media.

“The important thing for us back in those days, and yet today, is to have people hear us, our community, know what we’re talking about, what our values are,” she said.

“I don’t think that will ever go away. The Black press knows what’s going on in our community and how it can be useful and helpful, and reports the proper things: what the community, the children, the people are actually doing, rather than making up stories.”

On the current political climate and what she described as attacks on Black voices, Johnson said she has come to rely less on mainstream coverage and more on Black-owned media.

“I’m at a point where I hardly pay attention to what the majority white press says,” she said. “It is not a bigger worry than it once was in my younger years, because I feel that our community has built its own spokesperson, its own method of telling our story, and it is still there. It hasn’t disappeared. Still there, still writing, still telling, and that’s important.”

Passing the Torch to a New Generation

Johnson, who now lives in Atlanta, said she was in Minneapolis visiting her daughter and grandchildren, and that the area remains home in every sense, even as the community around her continues to change.

“Everything I did as an activist in the area came from this area,” she said.

“The active ones out there, gathering stories, writing stories, modeling what it’s like to be a young African American in a community like ours, that is an example of the history that we have known and read about and written about our people. It is observing your engagement in the community and your reporting through the media you have access to, and the responsibility of telling the story, keeping us informed.”

Johnson said she still looks forward to reading the paper every week, and hopes the young journalists who staff it keep telling the community’s story for generations to come.

Jasmine McBride welcomes reader responses at jmcbride@spokesman-recorder.com.