You might have heard of Walter Johnson because he’s been important to Naperville in many ways, but today I’m sharing a story you won’t know. For the first time, he’s talking publicly about an often-traumatic childhood that prepared him to be the man he is today.
If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Johnson, 67, has been a student recruiter for North Central College, helped lead the city’s YMCA, served as CEO of Turning Pointe Autism Foundation, was president of the Exchange Club of Naperville and is currently College of DuPage’s vice president of institutional advancement.
He was also the first person of color to be appointed to the Naperville Board of Fire and Police Commissioners, personally invited by the late Mayor George Pradel. While happy to accept, he notes the irony that while a student at North Central, he was stopped by a police officer who was investigating stolen bikes.
“I was walking. I didn’t even have a bike with me,” he said. “Thirty years later I was helping to hire people like that policeman. Naperville has made progress. It’s not perfect but they’ve come a long way, and they’ve always really helped me.”
Johnson was born in Ohio, one of 11 children. His father was a church minister who frequently moved the family to follow jobs. His childhood was forever changed when his mother was killed in a car crash.
“I remember it like it was a movie,” he said. “I was 4 and my brother 10. We shared a bunk bed, with me on the bottom. My dad woke us up and said, ‘Sons, your mom’s not coming home.’ I didn’t know what that meant. ‘She had had an accident and died and has gone to heaven,’ he said.
“How difficult was that for him? I remember him rubbing my shoulders and my back. I remember tears just coming down my face. Not coming back meant something. Then I fell back to sleep. The next day I was sad but inquisitive. He didn’t give up or become an angry man. He continued to feed us and our aunts helped. He never missed a beat.”
Johnson’s father remarried and had four more children. His stepmother already had one child.
“He was working two jobs and he was a minister,” Johnson said. “He was teaching me how to overcome, everything I needed to know to figure it out. My father, without question, was a defining factor in my life.”
A charismatic man, his father could have led large congregations but that was not his calling. Instead, “he would take churches in the oddest locations,” he said.
When they ended up in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, involved in what was more like a cult than a regular community, the family moved quickly and ended up living with relatives in Illinois, Johnson said.
“(My sisters) moved in with my aunt along with my stepmom and dad, who had a room there,” said Johnson. As the oldest boy still at home, there was no room for him so he moved into a nearby church basement with two friends. He was about 13.
“How in the world did a 13-year-old figure out how to survive?” he asked. “I could eat at my aunt’s house but I would hitchhike to work. I earned enough to buy food after lying about my age to get a job bagging in a grocery store. It wasn’t required of me but my dad had five other kids to worry about so I wanted to figure it out on my own. I was homeless for two years.
By living at the church, Johnson didn’t have to worry about paying rent but the accommodations were not luxurious. The boys used doors they’d taken off hinges as beds and learned to share their living space with rats, he said.
“All of these moments should have sideswiped me, but I didn’t dwell on them until I got older,” Johson said. “I do say to young people when I talk to them, don’t let the suit fool you. Growing up, I absorbed what I saw.”
There were 1,257 in his high school graduating class, only about 100 of which were black, he said. Still, he ended up being vice president of his senior class.
Johnson was able to attend North Central College because his father helped pay for his first year’s tuition with money from his retirement fund.
“I was an OK student early on, average when I got to high school,” he said. “I became better than average at high school to the extent that I was acceptably diligent at college. I worked hard at it.”
Johnson was the first person in his family to go to college, and now he helps others follow the same path at College of DuPage.
“When I went to North Central in 1976, I was one of only 10 black kids,” he said. “(But) with a little bit of role shifting, you can change your whole family trajectory.
“I can look back and see that each one of these things (in my childhood) could have stopped me, but they were building blocks,” he said. “I think I am a person of average academic intelligence but with an extraordinarily unique emotional intelligence. I can be comfortable in any room. I didn’t learn that in a book. … All these experiences taught me that.”
Hilary Decent is a freelance journalist who moved from England to Naperville in 2007. She can be reached at hilarydecent@gmail.com.
