{"id":6672,"date":"2016-01-14T10:46:13","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T16:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/?p=6672"},"modified":"2016-01-15T10:04:41","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T16:04:41","slug":"ida-johnson-and-united-neighbors-inc-of-davenport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/2016\/01\/14\/ida-johnson-and-united-neighbors-inc-of-davenport\/","title":{"rendered":"Ida Johnson and United Neighbors, Inc. of Davenport"},"content":{"rendered":"

In celebration of the upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Special Collections would like to feature Davenporter Ida Johnson, recipient of the 2001 Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans\u2019 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award exactly 15 years ago tomorrow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ida<\/a>

Ida Johnson helps with shirt sales at United Neighbors Inc. in Davenport on Martin Luther King Day, 2009. Image courtesy of the Quad-City Times.<\/p><\/div>\n

Johnson is the recipient of numerous awards before and since, including two in the past year: the 2015 Athena Award honoring local women in leadership roles, and induction into the Iowa Volunteer Hall of Fame, “the most prestigious state-level honor volunteers can receive.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson is the founder and longtime Executive Director of United Neighbors, Inc., a community-based social service organization\u00a0that has enriched the lives of the city\u2019s residents for 43 years. From an initial desire\u00a0to provide\u00a0a\u00a0safe place for neighborhood children to play and learn, Johnson increased\u00a0the ambitions of her non-profit to offer\u00a0after-school and summer programs for youth, street and park beautification projects,\u00a0home-buying and home-repair assistance, senior programs, and a host of other free services aimed at improving\u00a0the quality of life in Davenport’s predominantly African-American neighborhoods.<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson’s work at United Neighbors places her squarely in the local tradition of social reform efforts headed by women, such as\u00a0<\/span>Annie Wittenmyer<\/a><\/span>, Clarissa Cook<\/a>, Maria Purdy Peck, and <\/span>Phebe Sudlow<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0And as an African-American woman,\u00a0she joins Cecile Cooper<\/a> as a Davenporter dedicated\u00a0to providing equal opportunities for all. \u00a0As one of her many awards states, Ida Johnson is indeed “one of Iowa’s most valued history makers,”* and we wish her continued success in\u00a0realizing Dr.\u00a0Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream here in the Quad-Cities.<\/span><\/p>\n

(posted by Katie)<\/p>\n

______________<\/p>\n

*Ida Johnson\u00a0was honored by the African American\u00a0Museum of Iowa<\/a> in Cedar Rapids as a 2009 Iowa History Maker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In celebration of the upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Special Collections would like to feature Davenporter Ida Johnson, recipient of the 2001 Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans\u2019 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award exactly … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[79,1120,1468,1470,1467,1469,219],"class_list":["post-6672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-history","tag-african-americans","tag-davenporters-of-note","tag-ida-johnson","tag-inc","tag-martin-luther-king-jr-day","tag-united-neighbors","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXc-1JC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6672"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6675,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6672\/revisions\/6675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}