DR. MILDRED POOLE JOHNSON

1930 - 2023

God's Prolific Ambassador

Mildred Poole was born on May 3, 1930, in Birmingham, Alabama. She excelled in school and as a teenager, was a lifeguard at a segregated pool in Birmingham. She prepared for a career in nursing following high school.

After the completion of her nursing program, she met Washington Johnson Sr., who had just returned from serving in the military during World War II. They were later married and over the years, the family expanded with the arrival of Janice, Cynthia, Stephanie, Rosalind, Washington II, and Grayland. As parents, the Johnsons emphasized that faith in God and achievement in higher education were two important keys to open the doors of opportunity. Mildred continued her education, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice and a Master of Religious Education from FaithGrant College in Birmingham.

During the 1950s, after having prayed for God to reveal His plan for her, Mildred soon found herself in a thriving Bible study class, where she became very knowledgeable of the Bible, and invited many others to join the class. After the new converts were baptized into the Ephesus SDA Church in Birmingham by Elder Donald Crowder, without any prompting, his new member, Mildred Johnson, took it upon herself to nurture them. Pastor Crowder perceived her as having a special gift and anointing for the work of evangelism and Bible Instruction.

During the Civil Rights Movement, Mildred faithfully carried out Bible instruction work at the Ephesus SDA Church. Throughout her life she prioritized sharing the good news of the gospel while simultaneously advocating for social justice, equality, and freedom. She and her husband were inspired to advocate for social justice by conversations with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the work on behalf of her father’s family-owned funeral home in Birmingham to provide financial support for the cause. Pastors of the Ephesus Church affirmed Mildred’s natural gift for soul winning, and invited her to serve as a Bible Instructor. By God’s grace, every meeting in which she participated produced an abundant harvest of souls.

Elder Charles Joseph introduced Mildred to Elder Calvin Rock, sharing that “Millie” would be an asset to his soul-winning team. She was soon contacted by Rock to serve as his lead Bible Instructor in an evangelistic meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1969. The host pastor, Elder Jackson Doggette, Sr, welcomed her and other members of the Bible instructor team that included Barry Black, a ministerial student from Oakwood College, and Benjamin Browne, a pastoral intern. Through the soul winning team’s efforts and prompting of the Holy Spirit, more than 200 souls were baptized into the

Longview Heights Seventh-day Adventist Church. Remarkably, 100 of them came from Mildred’s list. With a spirit of humility, she deflected all accolades and attributed her success to God.

Over time, the Associate Secretary of the General Conference, Elder Charles E. Bradford, contacted the President of the South Central Conference, Elder Charles E. Dudley Sr., and recommended that he hire Mildred Johnson as a full time Bible instructor. This would break tradition, since most of the women hired in the church at that time were administrative professionals. The South Central Conference executive committee voted the action. Now this wife, mother, and nurse would become a full-time (and most productive) Bible Instructor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Johnson’s having broken “the glass ceiling” in evangelism was particularly evident with her singular female role during the initiation of the Evangelism Council at Oakwood College in the late 1970s, where she facilitated all the Bible Instructor seminars. In later years, she was occasionally invited by the Oakwood University School of Theology to lecture to ministerial students as well. Her zeal for soul-winning did not cease when she retired in the late 1990s. Even while recovering in a rehabilitation center from a broken hip in 2020, she would invite others into her room every Sabbath morning to watch the Oakwood University Church worship service.

She was honored to receive numerous awards and official recognition from denominational and renowned organizations for her outstanding work, including an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL) from Faith-Grant College. In spite of her busy schedule, she always found time for family and enjoyed traveling. She visited five of the seven continents, took the family’s annual winter vacation to Florida; went shopping with her daughters, enjoyed interior and floral design, and fishing. Looking back over her career, she attributed her success to God, and to the loving support of her husband, Washington Sr. He played an integral role in her ministry as she traveled and participated in kingdom-building activities. Her ministry efforts resulted in many baptisms, some of the converts becoming Seventh-day Adventist pastors, and the successful establishment of three churches. The magnitude of Mildred’s work as a religious educator was featured in the book, A Star Gives Light. She established a scholarship at Oakwood University to assist women pursuing ministry careers in 2017. She established an additional scholarship at Oakwood for future teachers in memory of her late daughter, Cynthia. In partnership with the C.C. Taylor Foundation, she made a significant contribution to a scholarship for high school students at Oakwood Adventist Academy in memory of her late son, Grayland.

Dr. Mildred Poole Johnson, beloved matriarch and iconic pacesetter in evangelism, closed her eyes for the last time on March 12, 2023, but will be awakened soon by the sound of the trumpet on resurrection day. What a day that will be, when she will be reunited with her family and the thousands of souls harvested by her faithful labor!

She was preceded in death by her husband, Washington Johnson Sr.; daughter, Cynthia Yvette Johnson and son, Grayland Dewayne Johnson (Blanca). She will be sorely missed by her four children, Janice Browne (Benjamin) of Nashville, Tennessee; Stephanie Dingome (Gill) of Birmingham, Alabama; Rosalind Adedokun (Muyiwa) of Nashville, Tennessee; Washington Johnson II (Joyce) of Fort Meade, Maryland; two siblings, Earnestine Poole and James Poole; and a host of other relatives and friends. t

Special Thanks to the Johnson family from Regional Voice magazine for sharing this tribute to Dr. Mildred Johnson, whose wonderful life was dedicated to God’s work for humanity.