We were saddened last week to learn of the death of Victor “Vic” Johnson Jr., a well-known civil rights activist and educator. His commitment to our community ran deep and his influence will be felt for a long time to come.

Johnson was a native of Winston-Salem and attended Kimberly Park Elementary School and later Atkins High School. After a three-year stint in the U.S. Army, he attended Winston-Salem State Teachers College, now known as Winston-Salem State University. He played both offense and defense on the football team there for four years.

In February 1960, at age 24, he joined a group of Black and white students from Winston-Salem Teachers College and Wake Forest College who conducted a sit-in at the whites-only lunch counter at the Woolworth’s store in downtown Winston-Salem. They were arrested — but there was no widespread vandalism. And in May, Winston-Salem became the first Southern city to voluntarily desegregate its lunch counters.

“At that time, the walls of segregation had to be challenged and eradicated,” the Rev. John Mendez, the retired pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, told the Journal’s John Hinton last week. “They did just that, and he did his part. He did what he had to do.”

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1960, Johnson earned a master’s degree in education at N.C. A&T State University. Staying close to home, he took a job as a teacher at Paisley Middle School. He later served as an assistant principal at Carver High School and briefly as an interim principal at North Forsyth High School. He was appointed to the school board in March 1997, where he served through November 2018.

As a member of the board’s grievance committee, Johnson was able to act as a go-between for students, their parents and school principals. He was known for following the academic progress of students he taught.

Don Martin, a Forsyth County commissioner and a former superintendent of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, said that he’d remember Johnson as a friend and as a giving man who wasn’t concerned about getting credit for his accomplishments.

“That’s why he was on the school board,” Martin said. “I had the utmost respect for him.”

“This community is a better place because of his life’s work fighting for basic human rights,” Malishai Woodbury, the chairwoman of the school board, said in a statement Thursday. “As a board member for many years, he supported students, he stood alongside teachers and did everything he could to make public education in our district the best it could be for all students. Our district has lost a true leader and friend.”

It’s especially sad that Johnson died as a victim of the COVID-19 epidemic, despite taking stringent precautions.

The news comes as the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools system is still tweaking its reopening plan in response to the danger of COVID. Last week the school board decided to delay the return of high school students to in-person attendance. This follows the advice of local health officials.

As we’ve said before, the pace of reopening is a difficult question, with arguments to be made on both sides. The concerns of administrators and teachers need to be taken in consideration as well as the needs of the students — especially as we’re on the verge of vaccines becoming more widely available.

But we’re glad to know that officials and school board members are flexible enough to change direction when it’s required.

We suspect Johnson would approve.

— Winston-Salem Journal