Milwaukee’s Johnsons Park name to be expanded

New signage at Johnsons Park, 1919 W. Fond Du Lac Ave., will be unveiled on May 4, 2024, at 1 pm, to reveal the full names of the people the park is named for.

Clarence and Cleopatra Johnson were a community-mined, entrepreneurial couple that will finally have their legacy known to many Milwaukeeans.

Clarence Johnson graduated from Tuskegee Institute and moved to Milwaukee with his wife, Cleopatra, in 1921. The Johnsons owned Ideal Tailor shop downtown, one of the few Black businesses that survived the Great Depression Era. Through their business, they employed many African Americans in the community. Additionally, they founded the North Central Branch of the YMCA, now the Northside YMCA at 1350 W. North Ave, and Columbia Savings and Loan Association, Wisconsin’s first Black-owned bank, located at 2020 W. Fond Du Lac Ave.

The renaming effort has been more than two years in the making. In 2022, County Board Supervisor Marcelia Nicholson introduced a proposal to expand the name to make it clearer. Nicholson’s resolution said, “The Johnsons were pillars in the community and worked to improve the quality of life in their community through recreation, activities, baseball, and swimming competitions.”

When the County Board took up the proposal, Clayborn Benson, executive director of the Wisconsin Black Historical Society and Museum, told the committee that he thinks it is “crucially important” to use their full names.