Marlene Johnson oral history interview, July 11, 2016

Item — othertype: Oral History

Identifier: JohnsonM_20160711

Staff Only

Marlene Johnson oral history interview

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Scope and Contents

Interviewed by Eleanor Smith. In this interview, Marlene Johnson talks about growing up in a peripatetic military family, and her experiences growing up African-American in various locales during the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout the interview, she describes experiences of being alienated or ostracized, whether for her race, her sexuality, or her manner of conducting herself. She talks about coming out as a lesbian and working at Karuna Counseling, where she encountered systemic racism despite the ostensibly progressive bent of the organization. Johnson discusses the various skills and lessons she learned at Karuna, and talks about the trajectory of her career after she left Karuna and went into private practice. She speaks briefly about her physical disability and disability activism in which she has participated.

Dates

Creation: July 11, 2016

Restriction on Access

Oral history available for research.

Biographical Note

Marlene Johnson was born into a military family in Cherry Point, N.C. Her family moved frequently during her childhood in the 1950s and 1960s. Johnson had an extremely close relationship with her mother and grandmother. She attended Morris Brown College, from which she was expelled for missing church after a protest march, and eventually finished college at Georgia State University. At Morris Brown, Johnson met and married a member of the Marine Corps. She later came out as a lesbian and divorced her husband, to which her father objected so stringently that he crossed her name out of the family's Bible. Johnson studied sociology and eventually got a job at Karuna Counseling, where she worked for nearly ten years. She later went into private practice.