Eddie Bernice Johnson

Midway through her second term in the state senate, Johnson ran in the Democratic primary for the newly created 30th congressional district.

Eddie Bernice Johnson (December 3, 1934 – December 31, 2023) was an American politician who represented Texas's Texas's 30th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1993 to 2023.

Johnson was a member of the Democratic Party.

Eddie Bernice Johnson was born in Waco, Texas, on December 3, 1934, to Edward Johnson, a tailor, and Lillie Mae White Johnson, a homemaker.

She and her three siblings grew up attending Toliver Chapel Baptist Church, where her mother was an active member.

Johnson had aspired to a career in medicine since childhood, and wished to become a doctor, but was told by a high school guidance counselor that this would not be possible because she was female.

Johnson graduated from A.J. Moore High School at age 16, and moved to Indiana to attend Saint Mary's College of Notre Dame, where she graduated in 1955 with her nursing certificate.

She transferred to Texas Christian University, from which she received a bachelor's degree in nursing.

Johnson first became known in Dallas as a civil-rights activist in the 1960s.

After passage of civil-rights legislation and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which enabled African Americans in the South to register and vote, more African Americans began to run for office and be elected.

Johnson also served in the Texas House of Representatives, where she was elected in 1972 in a landslide, the first black woman to win electoral office from Dallas.

She also served three terms in the Texas Senate.

In 1972, as an underdog candidate running for a seat in the Texas House, Johnson won a landslide victory.

She was the first black woman ever elected to public office from Dallas.

She soon became the first woman in Texas history to lead a major Texas House committee, the Labor Committee.

She later attended Southern Methodist University and earned a Master of Public Administration in 1976.

Johnson was the first African American to serve as Chief Psychiatric Nurse at the Dallas Veterans Administration Hospital.

She entered politics after 16 years in that position.

Johnson left the State House in 1977, when President Jimmy Carter appointed her as the regional director for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the first African-American woman to hold this position.

Johnson entered electoral politics again in 1986, when she was elected as a Texas state senator.

She was the first woman and the first African American from the Dallas area to hold this office since Reconstruction.

Her concerns included health care, education, public housing, racial equity, economic development, and job expansion.

Johnson served on the Finance Committee, for which she chaired the subcommittee on Health and Human Services, and the Education Committee.

She wrote legislation to regulate diagnostic radiology centers, require drug testing in hospitals, prohibit discrimination against AIDS victims, improve access to health care for AIDS patients, and prohibit hospital kickbacks to doctors.

A fair-housing advocate, she sponsored a bill to empower city governments to repair substandard housing at landlords' expense, and wrote a bill to enforce prohibitions against housing discrimination.

Johnson worked against racism while dealing with discrimination in the legislature.

"Being a woman and being black is perhaps a double handicap," she told the Chicago Tribune. "When you see who's in the important huddles, who's making the important decisions, it's men."

Johnson sponsored several bills aimed at equity, including a bill to establish goals for Texas to do business with "socially disadvantaged" businesses.

She crafted a fair-housing act aimed at toughening fair-housing laws and establishing a commission to investigate complaints of discriminatory housing practices.

Johnson also held committee hearings and investigated complaints.

In 1989, she testified in federal court about racism in Dallas's city government.

Johnson was elected to the House in 1992, becoming the first registered nurse in Congress.

In 1992, she formally asked the Justice Department to investigate harassment of local black students.

That same year, she held hearings to examine discrimination charges about unfair contracting bids for the government's Superconducting Super Collider.

Johnson feared the legacy that discrimination leaves for youth.

"I am frightened to see young people who believe that a racist power structure is responsible for every negative thing that happens to them," she told the New York Times. "After a point it does not matter whether these perceptions are true or false; it is the perceptions that matter."

She defeated Republican nominee Lucy Cain 72%-25% in the 1992 general election, and became the first nurse elected to the United States Congress.

At the swearing-in of the 116th United States Congress, she became dean of Texas's congressional delegation.

Upon Representative Don Young's death in March 2022, Johnson became the oldest member of the House of Representatives.

She retired at the end of the 117th Congress.