Dallas, Texas — Pioneering U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas nurse who helped bring hundreds of millions of federal dollars to the Dallas area as the region's most powerful Democrat, has died. She was 88.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and many other leaders issued statements Sunday about her death after her son posted about it on Facebook. The Dallas Morning News also confirmed her death with an unnamed source close to the family. No cause of death was given.
“She was the most effective legislator Dallas has ever had,” the mayor said in a statement. “Nobody brought more federal infrastructure money to our city. No one has fought harder for our communities and the interests and safety of our residents. And no one knew how to better navigate Washington for the people of Dallas.”
Eddie Bernice Johnson spent three decades in the House of Representatives after becoming the first registered nurse elected to Congress and the first Black psychiatric nurse-in-charge at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Dallas. She became the first Black woman to chair the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and she also led the Congressional Black Caucus. She left office in January after repeatedly delaying her retirement. Before Congress, she served in the Texas Legislature.
Johnson used her leadership position on the committee to fight against Republican efforts to block action on climate change.
Steven Horsford, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Johnson was “a staunch advocate for expanding STEM opportunities for Black and minority students,” who also played a key role in helping the Biden administration pass a to implement a large package of incentives for computer chip manufacturers.
Johnson was born in Waco and grew up in the segregated South. The once segregated Union Station in Dallas was renamed in her honor in 2019.
Her own experience with racism helped her become involved in politics. She recalled that VA hospital officials were shocked that she was black after hiring her invisibly, so they rescinded their offer to live in a dorm on campus. She told The Dallas Morning News in 2020 that officials would go into patient rooms before her to “say I was qualified.”
“That was honestly the most blatant, overt racism I have ever experienced in my life,” she told the newspaper.
Johnson almost quit, but decided to stick with it.
“It was quite a challenge,” she said. “But any job that you enter for the first time as an African American woman would be a challenge. Before I got there, they hadn't rented one yet. Yes, it was a challenge, but it was a successful venture.”