'Portia Johnson Drive' unveiled

A Duluth community advocate's name is on a street sign marking an access road she fought to create behind Central High School.

The sign marking Portia Johnson Drive was unveiled Tuesday morning.

Like any true activist, the 67-year-old -- standing behind her sign and in front of about 100 Central students, staff and community members gathered for the unveiling ceremony -- capitalized on the attention.

After thanking the group, she made a plea to save Central High School, which is slated for closure under the district's long-range facilities plan.

"Hopefully we will still have a Central High School when people drive by to see [the sign]," she said, and then laughed with the crowd about the timing of her pitch. "You know I wasn't going to let that one pass."

Since the graduation of all four of her children from Central, Johnson has continued to be a steady presence in the school, and the school's site council unanimously voted to name the street after Johnson last spring.

Central principal Lisa Mitchell-Krocak thanked Johnson for her dedication.

"She has given us her heart, her soul, her perspective, her thoughts, her energy -- just about everything," Mitchell-Krocak told the crowd.

Saving Central is just one of the fights for which Johnson has thrown her hat in the ring; she has been championing civil rights and education causes in Duluth since shortly after she arrived from Ohio in 1966.

"I came here as a very young, angry black woman because of all the injustice that occurred growing up in segregation," Johnson said. Her perspective started changing in 1975, she said, when her friend Lurline Baker-Kent became the first black woman elected to serve on the Duluth School Board. "That helped me to look at things differently; to look at people differently," Johnson said.

Johnson has served as a member of Duluth's NAACP , the Arrowhead Regional Correction Advisory Board, the Duluth school district's Desegregation/Integration Council, the African American Educational Advisory Council, the League of Women Voters and the St. Louis County End to Homelessness Committee, as well as many others. She has served many of those groups as president and vice president.

"I feel there is a need here," she said of her commitment. "There are very few people of color that are doing these things ... and I want to represent my community. I want to see a better community; we all want to see a better community."

Sharon Witherspoon spoke on behalf of the NAACP at the ceremony.

"We always say 'don't talk about it, be about it,' and Portia is always about it," she said. Several others spoke in praise of Johnson, including Duluth School Board member Mary Cameron, who credited Johnson as being one of the role models that helped shape her.

George Himango, the director of the Duluth school district's Desegregation/Intergration Committee, also spoke.

"In this hectic life demands are constantly made on us .... We all seem to tire under the weight of those demands, but you, Portia, rise above that," he said. "To quote a proverb, the hand that gives gathers. That, dear friends, is Portia Johnson."

Johnson said her work is far from done, and she will continue advocating for issues close to her heart, including ridding Duluth of segregation.

She turned to her family in attendance -- including children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren -- and acknowledged the strength it took to live through the challenges life has presented.

"We are still here fighting the fight, and we will keep fighting it," she said.