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Born in Rochester, New York, Johnson earned an associate's degree from the University of Buffalo and a bachelor's degree at Wayne State University in Detroit. At the age of 75, she graduated from Howard University's School of Divinity with a master's degree in religious studies.

While working in the Detroit office of the in the early 1970s, Johnson met and befriended late civil rights icon Rosa Parks. In 1955, Parks helped spark a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man, ultimately leading to the desegregation of the city's public buses. Parks died in 2005.

Johnson was hired in 1972 as a general assignment reporter in the AP's Detroit bureau. She covered stories on Black capitalism, court-ordered busing in Detroit's public schools, tensions between the predominately white police department and the city's Black residents, breast cancer screening and women empowerment in business and culture.

Minority hiring program brings Johnson to AP

Johnson, who was Black, sued the global news organization for race and gender discrimination the year after she joined. She had been hired as part of a minority hiring program meant to bring in diverse talent to the AP — but after several months on the job, Johnson claimed she had received no training. She also believed she was being held to a performance standard different from her white, male counterparts.

“What the suit was about originally was racism,� Johnson said in a 2013 interview with History Makers, a nonprofit research and educational institution that keeps an online oral history of both well-known and unsung Black Americans.

“I was filing a copy, and there was nothing wrong with the copy,� Johnson said. “And so, like nine months in, the boss decides that he’s going to retire, and he’s going to dump me. And I said ‘oh, my gosh.’ And so, I was very upset.�

Johnson said the the Newspaper Guild helped her file the suit, which later became a class-action claim involving several other female minority journalists. Johnson then took a leave of absence in June 1975, according to AP records. Newspaper archives show her AP byline appearing on a Detroit-datelined story in 1975.

“It was a scary thing for her to do,� Evans said about her mother's discrimination claim against the AP. Much later, “she ended up getting like $700. I remember her being very upset over that — it kind of got taken away from her getting justice.�

Class-action lawsuit nets bonuses, training for women and minorities

The Newspaper Guild's sex and race discrimination class-action lawsuit against the AP was settled about decade later in 1983 for more than $1 million. Johnson was not listed as one of the plaintiffs. Under the agreement, which involved the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the AP was required to establish affirmative action plans for female journalists, as well as Black and Hispanic journalists.

“The suit turned from all Black and one white (plaintiff), to all white and one Black (plaintiff)," Johnson recalled in the interview with History Makers. “And the one Black — the one that went to the civil suit — they took my name off and put another woman’s name on it. A Black woman who I had never heard of before.�

The seven women listed as plaintiffs shared $83,120, according to a 2019 NewsGuild International article. Part of the settlement agreement included provisions for training and bonuses for AP's minority and female journalists.

"I wasn’t in it for the money," Johnson said, also noting that she couldn't find jobs in the journalism industry for some time after filing her lawsuit.

“We should be grateful that someone like Marlene, a Black woman in the 1970s at a major news organization who had the courage,� said veteran journalist Vincent McCraw, who also is Black and worked with Johnson later in her career at the Washington Times. “Whether she, willingly or not, knew there would be a sacrifice, she took it.�

Johnson returned to journalism, ventured into public relations

Johnson later moved to Washington where she worked for the Newspaper Guild, the National Urban League and the National 4-H Council. She also worked with the White House Council On Aging and was part of the press office for President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration committee, according to her obituary.

McCraw, a regional manager for Report for America, said he learned of Johnson's death from Evans. He met Johnson in the early 1990s in Washington when she was working in communications and he was covering city government for the Washington Times.

“We struck up a conversation and I learned she'd been in journalism,� McCraw said. “What I did not know then was the suit she had against AP. After a year or so she mentioned how she wanted to get back into journalism.�

It was through McCraw that Johnson would come to work at the Washington Times in 1994, where she was an assistant features editor, he said. Johnson retired from there in 2004.

She held memberships in the National Association of Black Journalists, the Capital Press Club and the Public Relations Society of America.

‘Somebody you could count on’

Johnson moved to Los Angeles about 10 years ago to be closer to her family, said Evans, who added that her mother was diagnosed in 2023 with dementia.

“She loved being a reporter, a journalist," her daughter said. “She was really an advocate for people and telling the truth.�

In the interview with History Makers, Johnson said she would like to be remembered “as a friend, as somebody you could count on, as a good Christian woman, as a strong woman, as a loving person, as a good mom, as a wonderful grandmom.�

Johnson also is survived by two grandchildren, a son-in-law, and two siblings.