Jerry Johnson: In Memoriam

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Over the nine-year history of the Shepherd Express LGBTQ Progress Awardthere has been only one presented posthumously, namely to civil rights activist, Wisconsin state legislator Lloyd Barbee. Sadly, there is now a second. Jerry Johnson, one of this year’s awardees, passed away just days before the announcement of the 2023 roster of winners and a month before his 80th birthday. Like other recipients, the brief biographical notes included in the Shepherd Express’ announcement of its LGBTQ Progress Awards offered bare insight into Johnson’s accomplishments and contribution to Milwaukee’s social justice history. 

The age of LGBTQ activism in which Johnson made his mark was one in which individuals dedicated themselves to the LGBTQ community regardless of risk to life and limb. Unlike today’s leadership generation of presidents and CEO’s, in Johnson’s era, community service was a way of life compensated mainly by the satisfaction in the impact one had made, however slowly and incrementally, towards the achievement of LGBTQ rights and equality.  

Johnson’s primary recognition is for Wisconsin Light, a community newspaper he operated with his partner Terry Boughner. The two had met in 1986 and would begin publication of Wisconsin Light a year later. A house Johnson had purchased in 1980 on Brewer’s Hill served as their place of business. 

I first met Johnson in 1989 when delivering typed copy to the house. The walls were stripped down to the studs with a web of extension cords providing power from the few available outlets. A desk functioned as the Wisconsin Light office. Rehabbing the home was apparently a secondary priority—after all, there was a paper to publish. In those early years, there was always plenty to write about. Its first edition published in November 1987 set the tone for the next dozen years with an all-encompassing palette of coverage including AIDS (dominating headlines for years), politics, entertainment, sports, the arts, pageants and even a list of best-selling gay and lesbian books. Eventually, the Light would achieve national distribution.

Decade of Light

The Light’s success was reflected in its 10th anniversary fete, “A Decade of Light,” that culminated with a banquet held at the downtown Hilton Hotel. Still considered one of city’s best LGBTQ parties ever, it raised $10,000 which Johnson immediately donated to Cream City Foundation. In the last years of publication, the Wisconsin Light was taken over in 1998 by another owner who eventually closed the paper. Johnson, however, invested his inheritance to bring the Light back. The return was brief, and the publication put out a final edition in May of 2002.

Over the years we interacted through another common mission, PrideFest. As manager of the event’s Art and Culture Building that housed Milwaukee LGBT History Project’s annual exhibit (a devoted archivist, Johnson co-founded the History Project in 2002), I could rely on Johnson and his volunteers to install the panels and displays that usually included an interactive timeline that visitors could annotate with their own historic markers. One year, Johnson painstakingly installed dozens upon dozens of LGBTQ relevant movie posters and other ephemera in a display that covered the building’s walls from floor to (an especially high) ceiling. He would later donate that collection to the UW-Milwaukee LGBTQ Archives as the “Jerry Johnson Collection of Wisconsin Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Ephemera” where it remains today.

I was fortunate enough to attend a small and informal ceremony during which Johnson’s sister Janet spread his ashes on the grounds of that famous house on Brewer’s Hill. In conversations held with her and his brother Wes, I learned some of the backstory documenting his early life of service to his fellow man that may help explain his commitment to his community. Johnson grew up in Eagle, Wisconsin. After attending Milton College in Milton, Wis., he joined the Peace Corps in the mid-1960’s, spending two years in the Nigerian town of Owo. Following that service, Johnson moved to Milwaukee, where he immediately became engaged with the nascent LGBTQ activist community beginning with his involvement with the Gay Peoples Union and later, in the 1980s, with the Cream City Business Association. As Wisconsin Light’s publisher and photographer, he would spend the next dozen years, then, after the paper’s closure, he would serve on the Cream City Foundation’s board of directors from 2003-2006.

In 2007, Johnson experienced the loss of his partner of 20 years and, in 2008, a house fire forced him to sell his home. However, Johnson continued to be active in the community until health issues forced him to eventually retreat from the community stage. 

His death on May 25, prompted fellow activist Bill Meunier to write, “Jerry’s dedication and integrity marked him as an exceptional human being. As someone once said, ‘The best that can be said of us after we die is that we left the place in better shape than it was in when we got here.’ That can certainly be said about Jerry Johnson.”