Yvonne Johnson, the first Black mayor of North Carolina's third-largest city, has died

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- A longtime Greensboro council member who also was the first Black mayor of North Carolina’s third largest city has died.

Yvonne Johnson, who was the mayor pro tempore on the current city council, died Wednesday at age 82, Mayor Nancy Vaughan announced in a statement.

“Our city lost one of its champions,” Vaughan said. A cause of death wasn’t provided, but Vaughan had said Tuesday that Johnson was absent from the council meeting that evening because of illness, the News & Record of Greensboro reported.

Johnson spent nearly 30 years on the council -- first from 1993 to 2009, of which the last two years she served as mayor following a 2007 election victory. She lost her mayoral reelection bid in 2009 but returned to the council in 2011, serving until her death.

Johnson “was a dedicated public servant and friend who led Greensboro with courage, passion and a sense of justice,” Gov. Roy Cooper said Thursday on X, adding he was “grateful for her good work and the positive changes she helped make.”

Johnson was long involved in civil rights. She recalled in a 2023 interview with a publication of the North Carolina League of Municipalities about taking part in the 1963 March on Washington and in the sit-in movement while a student at Bennett College in Greensboro.

“I grew up here and I experienced segregation,” Johnson told Southern City Magazine. “I always felt it was wrong, but I never really had that spark, that motivation to get out there and do something that might make a difference. The spirit at Bennett spurred me. Once I was on the bandwagon, I was there.”

Johnson served as the leader of One Step Further, a nonprofit providing food assistance, mediation and other services, from its founding in 1982 until earlier this year, a previous news release from the nonprofit said.

“Our family is immensely proud of her service and she was and still is a role model for her four kids and seven grandkids,” Lisa Johnson-Tonkins, Johnson’s daughter and the current Guilford County Clerk of Superior Court, was quoted as saying in Vaughan's statement. “Her mantra was that service is the rent you pay for your time on earth. Mom’s rent has been paid up.”

Funeral arrangements were pending.