Read on Twitter
I wrote Nellie’s oral history; here’s her election story: “One day in 1945, this wild man, the Swedish business agent Swan Assarson, said to me, ‘Nellie, you should run for office.’ Told you how progressive Swan was, because if I won, I’d be the first black elected” in Mpls. https://twitter.com/VoteMpls/status/1357713331189145601
2. (Nellie was a big union activist.) She & Swan “tried to hang out a lot. We’d meet over coffee to discuss history, and just continue our continuing education. We never really joked around. I wanted to know, and he wanted to tell.”
3. “One of the things he englihtened me about was Sweden … that the lesson of Swedes was how they treated each other, regardless of class. But Swedes had also enslaved Swedes, very similar to what happened to blacks in the South. That amazed me.”
4. “I wanted to run for school board, but had helped put together a labor coalition for it, so no point in muddying up the waters. The Central Labor Body wanted 3 people from different walks of life: wife of a construction worker, another union person & a younger businessperson.”
5. “The businessperson brought a lot of votes to the whole slate, and education was a place where labor broadened its base. I figured the library board was not too far removed from the school board.”
6. “There was a chance to do some serious educating. The library board [also included Mpls School superintendent & U Regents chair]. I figured I could do my thing about equal opportunity because to some of these high people, we were still living in slavery or anti-Semitic times.”
7. “All through my life I believed if I just rubbed elbows with the powerful, something good would come of it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t try to work them hard, but there was something to be gained just by getting them to associate with different kinds of people.”
8. “I think rubbing elbows with the likes of me pushed Humphrey toward that great 1948 civil rights speech. (HHH & Nellie were tight.] You might understand the rights of all people, but you can’t really feel how important those rights are unless you get to know people.”
9. “Hubert was one of the first ones who wanted me to run. I told Hubert, ‘It sounds good, but tell me what I need.’ He said, ‘No skeletons, be willing, read & write.’ Now, he didn’t insult me with that last part - he was making a point about how basic the qualifications were.”
10. “They couldn’t find any skeletons except me being a woman! I was used to that to the hilt! But labor felt times changing, ‘Library board, that’s a good spot for a woman.’ When I was running, some talk about me being black got very negative in the wider community.”
11. “The head librarian sent a letter to the Mpls Tribune raising questions about my ability to handle dollars! Because I wasn’t white! We thought my race might show up in vote totals, but I didn’t think too hard about it. Getting labor’s endorsement was like getting elected.”
12. “There were mostly white sections of Mpls that didn’t vote for me - large sections in NE Mpls - but other sections voted for me 10:1. In the 2 sections where my vote wasn’t strong, there were a lot of newly immigrated Italian & Polish people - might’ve been due to ignorance.”
13. “Where I did well came from hard work - campaigning house-to-house. No one called me names. I went into areas where women worked. Women working outside the home knew I was a working woman. The rest, well NE Mpls was full of kids & I talked about the wages their husbands made”
14. “Anyway, I won the race by 20,000 votes. I was walking on air when it happened! I took the day off & if you know me, you know missing work is a very big deal!” Nellie served 6 years on the board until she got caught up the DFL’s left-wing “red scare” purge. Anothernot now!
not now!
15. If you enjoyed this, the book is “Nellie Stone Johnson: The Life of An Activist.” Still some copies out there for cheap! https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwixofC8m9PuAhVLZ80KHTpjD64QFjABegQIAxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FNellie-Stone-Johnson-Life-Activist%2Fdp%2F1886913358&usg=AOvVaw09EEX1xgBqyRxisQFDGtei (I don’t get royalties, the proceeds went to MnScu scholarships). Nellie’s statue will be at the Capitol one of these days. /end
