Nellie Stone Johnson

Nellie Stone Johnson (December 17, 1905 – April 2, 2002) was an American civil rights activist and union organizer. She was the first African-American elected official in Minneapolis and shaped Minnesota politics for 70 years.

Johnson helped form the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) and spearheaded the effort to create the first Fair Employment Practices department in the nation. She counseled both Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale and was on the Democratic National Committee in the 1980s.

Early life and education Nellie Saunders Allen was born, the oldest of eight, in Dakota County, Minnesota, near Lakeville, to William and Gladys (née Foree) Allen, one of the few black farming families in Minnesota in the early 1900s. Nellie’s family owned their first two farms between 1905 and 1918. Her mother was a college-educated schoolteacher from Kentucky and had African American, French, Irish and American Indian ancestry. Their family had a dairy farm and her father was involved with the Nonpartisan League, helping organize farmers and co-founding the Twin Cities Milk Producers Association. When she was 13, she distributed literature for the Nonpartisan League on her way to school. She joined the NAACP as a teenager. Nellie attended school in Clover Township, which only taught up to the 10th grade.

In September 1922, Nellie moved to Minneapolis where she was a live-in nanny for a white family that lived close to Loring Park. She then moved into her aunt and uncle's house in north Minneapolis. She took extension courses at the University of Minnesota, initially at the agriculture school. She took chemistry, intending to become a pharmacist, before gravitating towards social and political science. While at the university she took classes from E. W. Ziebarth and met Paul Robeson and Swan Assarson. She finished her GED in 1925.

Labor organizing and political activity In 1924, she was hired as an elevator attendant at the all-male Minneapolis Athletic Club, earning $15 per week. After her wages were cut to $12.50, she began quietly organizing workers with the Minneapolis Hotel and Restaurant Workers union.

Johnson met future Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1941 at Duluth State College. She would later mentor him in civil rights issues. In 1944, she was on the committee that merged the moderate Minnesota Democratic Party with the more radical Farmer–Labor Party, forming the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL).

In 1945, she was elected to the Library Board and became the first black person to be elected to a citywide office in Minneapolis. In 1955, she led the initiative to create a statewide version of the Minneapolis legislation, the Employment Practices Act of 1955.

She had differences with the Communist party leadership in 1946.

She was fired from her job at the Minneapolis Athletic Club in 1950 In February 1951, Johnson formally severed her relations with the Progressive and Communist Parties.

Later life In the 1960s, she raised money for the Freedom Marches of Martin Luther King.

A seamstress, in 1963 Johnson opened her own sewing and alterations shop in the old Kresge building. and in 1988 her store was named Nellie's Alterations.

Johnson continued to be active in state and local politics and was Van Freeman White's campaign manager in his successful 1979 bid for a seat on the Minneapolis City Council.

Johnson released an autobiography in 2000, Nellie Stone Johnson: The Life of an Activist. The book was edited and organized by David Brauer from over 50 interviews.

Johnson was a trustee of the Minneapolis Public Library and a board member of MnSCU. She received a lifetime achievement award from the Black Caucus of the American Association for Higher Education in 2000.

Personal life Johnson was married twice, to Clyde Stone for eight years, and to Lee Johnson for five years. Both marriages ended in divorce.