"Success in life begins with a good education."
UNCF mourns the passing and celebrates the life of Mrs. Eunice W. Johnson, who died in Chicago on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2010.
Mrs. Johnson believed that success in life begins with a good education. It certainly did for her.
At a time when fewer women received a college education than do today, Eunice Johnson received her bachelor's degree from Talladega College, now a UNCF-member institution. Her education began a lifetime not only of success, but also of service.
With her late husband John H. Johnson, she built a media empire that showcased the accomplishments of African Americans in an era when they were virtually absent from most newspapers and magazines. She selected the name for Ebony magazine and wrote a monthly fashion feature for the magazine's readers.
In the 1950s, at the suggestion of Jessie Covington Dent, wife of a former president of UNCF-member institution Dillard University in New Orleans, she created the Ebony Fashion Fair. Under her leadership, it grew to an international traveling showcase for high fashion making 180 stops per year in the U.S. and abroad.
But the Fashion Fair was about more than fashion. Over its more than 50 years, it raised more than $50 million for charity, much of it for UNCF. In addition, Mrs. Johnson donated $1 million to UNCF to endow the Eunice Walker Johnson Endowed Scholarship. (link to the scholarship on the UNCF site)
In 2001, UNCF honored Mrs. Johnson's dedication to UNCF, its colleges and students by bestowing on her its highest honor, the Frederick D. Patterson Award at its anniversary dinner in New York City.
Mrs. Johnson's late husband, John H. Johnson, president of the Johnson Publishing Company, served as a member of the UNCF Board of Directors for more than 30 years. And Mr. and Mrs. Johnson's daughter, Linda Johnson Rice, has served on the UNCF board for five years.
Eunice W. Johnson made the most of her education. And she devoted her life to making sure that others could have the same start she did. Her life reminds us all that "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."
