March/April response: A Tribute to Carolyn E. Johnson

Former United Methodist Women board president and transformative leader
leaves a legacy of love and justice

by Yvette Moore

Longtime United Women in Faith leader and friend Carolyn E. Johnson, Ph.D., died Nov. 17, 2024. Johnson was president of the national United Methodist Women board of directors from 1992 to 1996, and rendered years of service on the local, conference, and jurisdictional levels of the organization and The United Methodist Church. She was the second African American woman to serve as the organization’s board president. She was 77 years old. Her funeral took place in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Johnson was a transformative leader who believed her calling was to make the world a better place. 

“Carolyn was always a presence wherever she happened to be,” said Carolyn Marshall, a former secretary of The United Methodist Church General Conference and president of United Methodist Women board of directors. “Carolyn was affirming of people, any way you want to slice society. She had a way of accepting people.”

Dreams of becoming a teacher

From a child, Johnson dreamed of becoming a teacher, a dream she fulfilled by earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University and participating in a trailblazing teacher education program that integrated liberal arts into elementary education. She continued her passion for learning by earning a doctorate at Purdue University and launched a career dedicated to empowering others at that institution. Johnson’s work as Purdue’s interim chief diversity officer and promotion of initiatives like the school’s Diversity Fellows Program are examples of her commitment to fostering inclusivity and helping others thrive.

Johnson called faith her “guiding light.” She served on the local, conference, jurisdiction, and national levels of United Methodist Women and also Black Methodists for Church Renewal. 

“I knew Dr. Carolyn Johnson for over 30 years,” said retired Bishop Julius C. Trimble of the Indiana Conference, now general secretary of the General Board of Church and Society. “She was a voice for women, children, and inclusion, and she was always mentoring others to become more involved and take leadership roles. No one loved The United Methodist Church more than Dr. Carolyn Johnson. No one wanted to see The United Methodist Church be more committed to women, children, and marginalized people.”  

During Johnson’s term as president of United Methodist Women’s national board of directors, the organization championed issues still being grappled with in society, including poverty, ending child sex tourism and human trafficking, and advocacy for comprehensive health care for all in the United States. She led a delegation of more than 100 members to Capitol Hill to deliver to Congress 8,000 postcards calling for comprehensive health care for all from participants in United Methodist Women’s 1994 “Count Me In” quadrennial Assembly. 

“We are going to deliver our postcards with our message: Pass health-care reform by the end of the year,” Johnson said at the Capitol Hill press conference. “Perhaps there is no greater measure of the health of a country than the personal health of its citizens. Our faith fuels our concern.” 

Strategist at General Conferences

At General Conferences during and after her tenure on the national board, Johnson was a keen strategist for the organization and helped leaders shepherd United Methodist Women statements and policies for women, children, and youth through the process to adoption by the legislative body. She also consistently worked for racial justice and cooperation. 

“Her work around racial justice and equality was phenomenal,” said Andris Salter, retired assistant general secretary of United Women in Faith. “She worked very hard in the African American community. She attended a predominantly White church. She made friends. She really believed that only by connecting could we work together—and we had to work together.” 

Johnson used her professional expertise to strengthen and expand the ministries of the church. She was instrumental in the development of United Methodist-related Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe, from its inception, said Jim Salley, president & chief executive officer of Africa University, Inc. and associate vice chancellor for Institutional Advancement for Africa University. It began in the conversations in the mid-1980s about the role of missionaries and theological and higher education on the continent of Africa, he said. Johnson and Salley participated in a General Board of Global Ministries meeting on the issue in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1986 that began the process to create Africa University. 

“Carolyn was with Global Ministries representing the Women’s Division,” Salley said. “Bishop Desmond Tutu was there. Bishop Leontine Kelly was there. Bishop [Arthur] Kulah made the case. The results of that meeting were talked about in circles of Global Ministires and the General Board of Higher Education and Ministries, and persons were assigned to work across agencies to create a United Methodist University in Africa. That initiative was brought forward at General Conference in 1988 in St. Louis, Missouri. Carolyn was instrumental from the beginning.”

And her support continued even after her tenure on the Women’s Division board. She was supportive in her local church, in the Indiana Conference, through BMCR, and with Purdue University, Salley said.

“Africa University today has a memorandum of understanding with Purdue University that allows faculty and student exchanges,” he said. “Carolyn’s support from the beginning was infectious and she was always supportive.”  

Gift of Storytelling

Throughout her life and her many leadership roles and responsibilities, Johnson shared her faith with a glowing smile and a gift of storytelling that brought people together and offered the spoonful of sugar that helped all kinds of bitter truths digest more easily. 

Her message for United Methodist Women at the 1994 “Count Me In” Assembly may be heard as her final message for United Women in Faith today: Tell your story. She shared her own narratives about the power of storytelling in that address:

“One year at camp, my good friend and I … decided the traditional method of building a fire with small bits of kindling took too long. Instead, we’d get the biggest pieces of wood … light a match, have our fire, eat quickly, and be done with it. … We got the big pieces of wood. … But after we went through all the matches we were allowed, there was still no fire. The other girls who weren’t bright as we were, had fires and marshmallows. … And it started getting cold. Finally, somebody took pity on us, but only after she made us acknowledge that we had been too stubborn to use the kindling.

“To build a fire, you have to start with kindling: bitsy pieces of wood, little shavings, pieces of paper, anything to catch fire quickly because it is urgent that fire start right away. 

“United Methodist Women members have to tell stories of the kindling kind—bits and pieces of what we know to be the greatest story ever told—because it is urgent to address what is happening to the children of the world.”

As she wrote in an October 1994 response article, Johnson treasured United Methodist Women’s role in her faith journey: “United Methodist Women has been a special gift in my faith journey, an opportunity to be in community with women who share a common love for Jesus Christ and an overwhelming desire to make that love known in word and deed.” 

Yvette Moore is retired director of PR and marketing for United Women in Faith.

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