Johnson, Elra Wade, 1906-2008
Biography
Elra Wade Johnson was born in Durant, Mississippi, in 1906 to Joe Wade and Minnie Montgomery. Johnson had two sons: J. B. McCellan and Willie Montgomery. Elra Wade married John Johnson in 1953. She had 18 grandchildren, 38 great-grandchildren, and 41 great-great-grandchildren. In addition work in domestic service, Johnson worked as a seamstress, and later as a nurse at Durant Hospital. Elra Johnson earned a degree from the Post Graduate School of Nursing in Chicago in 1961. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement, participating in protests and voter registration drives and serving as a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She was elected to the Holmes County Board of Election Commissioners in 1968 and 1972. After her husband’s death in the 1980s, Johnson moved to Waterloo to be close to McCellan. There she was a member of the Payne Memorial A.M.E. Church. Elra Johnson died in 2008 at the age of 102. Biographical information found in Johnson’s interview for the African American Voices of Cedar Valley project; in “Turbulent Times,” a 2006 profile of Johnson in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier; and in her obituary as published in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
McCellan, J.B., 2009-06-16
J.B. McCellan’s oral history interview focuses on his mother, Elra Wade Johnson, and her experiences working as a maid for a white family for three to four years in the 1940s. He characterizes her experiences differently than she did in an earlier interview, recalling that the family his mother worked for “treated her just like family.” [In a 2006 interview with Dr. David W. Jackson, III, which preceded the Maid Narratives project but was included in the book, Elra Johnson shared the racism she experienced from white families that she worked for. She described quitting a job after being made to use the back door and being made to eat off plates the family used to feed their dogs.]