Park to honor local civil rights pioneer

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s name adorns streets, buildings and learning centers nationwide as a memorial to the slain civil rights leader and a reminder of his message.

So organizers hope that renovations to an old circle park in Vegas Heights will help spark a rippling effect of revitalization that will later be credited to the woman behind the park's new name.

In recent years Vegas Heights' centralized park has fallen to disrepair. It had seen a dwindling number of children swinging on the rusting playground equipment or dodging the drunks, who regularly gathered there.

Tomorrow the park, complete with new equipment, barbecue pits, trees and a 10-foot art project, will be the centerpiece of a $3 million city renovation effort, and it will be named to honor the late Lubertha Johnson.

Those who worked with the community leader, educator and civil rights pioneer here in Las Vegas hope the park will cause children to learn about and carry on her legacy.

"People often forget who causes them to be out there working for others," Katherine Joseph said. "We should never forget Lubertha Johnson."

Joseph worked with Johnson for decades on the Operation Independence project -- the first child-care facility made available to low-income parents who could not pay for such a service, but who could ill afford not to work.

Johnson's mantra was always "Get your education" and for decades, children taught the "Independence" way certainly did.

Four years have passed since Johnson died at age 89, but the struggle continues for her followers.

Joseph has struggled to get a building to continue Johnson's school and has now lost the license to operate a school because so much time has elapsed.

"People call every day asking about the school," Joseph said. "It makes me so sad that we aren't able to continue Lubertha's wishes."

Johnson was born in 1906 in Mississippi, a state where she would watch white men beat her grandfather and shoot her uncle. When she moved to Chicago at 17, she refused to go to school with white children because she viewed them with the same eyes that watched the Ku Klux Klan destroy her family.

"I was too young to realize that not everybody in the world was not like the people in Mississippi," Johnson told the Sun in a 1982 interview.

Johnson came to Las Vegas in 1943 and purchased a 25-acre ranch with her husband in Paradise Valley. The area became a favorite recreation area for blacks who were barred from most of Las Vegas' activities.

J. David Hoggard, 85, met Johnson 52 years ago when both were struggling to win freedoms for blacks in a segregated society.

"We were all amateur people crusading for our beliefs," said Hoggard, a former executive director of the Economic Opportunity Board. "She was a very honest, straightforward person who had great moral conviction and did what she could for others."

Johnson was one of the first black licensed nurses hired at Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital, the forerunner of University Medical Center.

She made her biggest mark with the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, serving as president and lobbying the state Legislature for passage of Nevada's civil rights law and non-discriminatory housing legislation.

Her Operation Independence included the first Head Start program, child-care centers and the Manpower program that became EOB.

"I think the reason the park should have her name is because her main goal was helping the children," Hoggard said.

Those who knew her use the same words to describe Johnson: courageous, well-spoken, intelligent and caring.

She joined with Josephine Baker when the singer led a group into the El Rancho showroom at the height of 1950s' segregated Las Vegas and later beamed with pride when the desegregation decree was signed at the Moulin Rouge in 1960.

"Miss Johnson was the guiding force for a lot of people," Joseph said.

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