Johnnie Tillmon

Johnnie Tillmon Blackston (born Johnnie Lee Percy; April 10, 1926 – November 22, 1995) was an American welfare rights activist. She is regarded as one of the most influential welfare rights activists in the country, whose work with the National Welfare Rights Organization influenced the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in particular.

Early life Tillmon was born into a family of sharecroppers on April 10, 1926. Tillmon never finished high school.

Civil rights activism

The National Welfare Rights Organization and welfare rights In California she found work as a union shop steward in a Compton laundry. At its peak in the late 1960s, the organization had nearly 25,000 dues-paying members.

In 1972, Wiley resigned and Tillmon moved to Washington to become the organization's executive director. She served in this role until 1974, when the organization shut down due to lack of funds. She then returned to California where she worked as a legislative aid and served on welfare committees at both the state and local levels.

In her landmark 1972 essay, "Welfare Is a Woman's Issue, " which was published in Ms.,

Later life, death and legacy Tillmon married her second husband, Harvey Blackston, a blues harmonica player known as Harmonica Fats, in 1979. They lived together in Watts, in a house only a few blocks from Nickerson Gardens. Tillmon had used a wheelchair after the amputation of her left foot and was on dialysis for four years prior to her death.

The National Union of the Homeless used what was called a "Johnnie Tillmon model" of organizing, named after her.