Consumer Advocate, Civil Rights heroine and now Legacy Award winner.
Katie Everette Johnson has accomplished a lot during her nine decades on earth.
“I don’t see myself as being a Legacy Award winner,” said Johnson, 91. “I never talked about the things I’ve done. I’ve been to the White House three times (while Lyndon Johnson was in office). Poor people were being short-changed so much and we wanted his administration to set up programs to counteract that. It’s just not something you brag about. It’s something God does himself.
“I was talked into the Legacy Award,” continues the Shady Side resident. “I was talked into it. I don’t do things to get credit, I want someone else to get the credit.”
Johnson has quietly changed the world—the one around her in the Hill District area of Pittsburgh and beyond.
She began her civil rights crusade as an office manager at the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh. In that position, she fought to improve working conditions for factory workers and tried to stop Whites from moving out of their neighborhoods when Blacks moved in.
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