Outstanding Proponent of Human Rights for Women and Persons of all Races
Born in Georgia, Carrie Parks Johnson grew up in a family of Methodist ministers and became an outstanding proponent of human rights for women and persons of all races. From 1899 until her death, she was actively engaged in promoting conference work, programs of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society and the Woman’s Missionary Council.
Between the years 1906 and 1918, she vigorously and relentlessly crusaded for ‘laity rights’ for women in the southern church. The North Georgia Conference chose her as a delegate to the 1922 General Conference, the first to seat women.
In 1920, she launched a crusade to correct racial injustices in the south. Selected to lead a committee to study the issues of black women and children at local, district and conference levels, she presented a plan that led to establishing sub-committees on race relations. That same year she was named to direct the women’s work of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC). Through her efforts, resolutions from local societies, church groups, and CIC were published, taking firm positions against lynching, mob violence, and other race-related injustices. The work in race relations among southern women, which was initiated by Johnson, laid the foundation for change that followed.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
