ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A Minneapolis state legislator wants a bust of a Minnesota civil rights pioneer at the State Capitol.
State Rep. Joe Mullery has introduced a bill seeking to bestow the honor on Nellie Stone Johnson. Born in Lakeville in 1905, Johnson began decades of political and union activism in the 1920s while a student at the University of Minnesota.
Johnson went on to organize for the hotel and restaurant workers union in Minneapolis and work with the local NAACP chapter. She became a mentor to Hubert Humphrey on civil rights, before he became one of the Democratic Party’s national leaders on the issue.
Johnson became the first black person to hold city-wide office in Minneapolis when she was elected to its library board in 1945. She died in 2002.
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