Ronald Johnson, Omaha Victim of Lead Poisoning, Remembers Inspiration of Environmental Activism
Ronald Johnson at the OPPD North Omaha Station in 2020. Photo credit: Kietryn Zychal
NOISE has been republishing “UNleaded,” A joint investigation by The Missouri Independent and the Midwest Newsroom exploring the issue of high levels of lead in the children in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Following is a previously unpublished 2020 profile of ronald johnson, an omaha victim of lead poisoning. If you would like to share your story of lead exposure or poisoning, contact noise.
By Kietryn Zychal
Ronald Johnson has never made more than $900 a month. Now 63, living on Social Security disability, he has never been on a vacation except to visit his older siblings who live out-of-state. A victim of prolonged lead exposure in infancy, Johnson’s life has been circumscribed by the physical disabilities he suffered as a result of lead poisoning, detected when he suffered a seizure as a two-year-old. The damage to his brain from lead would be lifelong and irreversible.
To prevent further seizures, the toddler was put on dilantin and phenobarbital and stelazine, an anti-psychotic medication. He remembers being taken off stelazine when he was a teenager. “I can write my name, but writing sentences— I can’t do that,” he explained. One of his eyes is misaligned, but he isn’t sure if the condition was caused by the lead poisoning.
Amazingly, Johnson does not express any self-pity about his hardships. “Life didn’t give me the time to be sorry for myself.”
His exposure to industrial toxins helped turn him into an activist. Beginning in 2012, Johnson worked on the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign which successfully lobbied the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) to reduce the use of coal at its North Omaha power plant.
“Life didn’t give me the time to be sorry for myself.”
At the time, Johnson was attending Black Men United meetings organized by North Omaha activist Willie Hamilton. That’s where where he met Graham Jordison, Omaha field organizer for Beyond Coal, who invited him to attend some Sierra Club events.
“A lot of times, I would keep to myself because I didn’t really know how to speak in public,” Johnson remembered. “I had to learn how to speak, to know what to say.” As a victim of lead poisoning, he knew firsthand how environmental toxins can destroy health. Once he learned about the negative health effects of coal, he became passionate about spreading the word to the community in North Omaha.
Sharif Liwaru speaking on KETV, May 16, 2013. Ronald Johnson on right.
He credits the Sierra Club with helping him find the courage to use his voice publicly to advocate for issues he cares about, even on television. “People at my apartment building called me 'Channel 7’ because I used to be on Channel 7 a lot,” he said with a smirk.
For most of his life, Johnson was not an activist. “I was more concerned about my jobs, my health, keeping my life together,” he said.
He and his older brother and sister grew up in South Omaha in the 1950s and 1960s. Their mother was a nurse. Their father was a roofer who supplemented his income by collecting and melting down scrap metals in their back yard, including batteries which contained lead. Both father and son succumbed to its effects. Johnson had to attend special education classes until he graduated from high school. When he was 10 or 12, his father was institutionalized, due to lead poisoning and alcoholism. He never saw him again and isn’t sure when he died.
Johnson received job training through Goodwill Industries and after high school worked as a dishwasher, janitor or in housekeeping. “I felt I could have done more, but at the time they gave you what they had,” he said. “In special ed, they don’t give you much of a choice. This a job. You either want it or find something else.”
On one job, Johnson reports that his supervisors gave him an acid dissolvent to scrub oven grates which burned him through his clothes. He said Goodwill told him if he quit, they would not help him find another job. Johnson lived with his mother until she died of lung cancer in 1981 when he was 23 years old, after which his sister took him in.
Finally, at age 30, his brother decided he deserved the chance to live on his own. His first apartment was at the Drake Court, near downtown. “It was a rough area. Leavenworth Street in the 1980s, it was crack alley. Pimps, shootings, killings,” he recalled. His first apartment was broken into and robbed.
“When you ain’t got much of a job, you have to live in rough areas,” Johnson quipped. Aside from working at his full-time job, he participated in Special Olympics from 1969 through the late 1990s— bowling, playing basketball, and doing track and field. He began attending a Seven Day Adventist Church. And, newly living on his own, he also tried out clubbing.
“The first place you want to go is a social club, to find some place to belong,” he said. Johnson went to a few clubs but soon discovered that clubbing can be dangerous. “You don’t know what kind of situation you are going to get into.”
Johnson’s final near-minimum-wage job lasted for 17 years at the DoubleTree hotel in the laundry where he suffered two herniated discs from lifting heavy sheets. His brother told him if he continued to work, he would wind up paralyzed. Johnson finally applied for disability, but needed legal representation to obtain it.
As a retired person, he is active in his church. He sometimes attends meetings organized by Willie Hamilton which are focused on finding solutions to problems faced by the black community. Johnson is certified to register voters and has done phone banking for the Democratic Party.
In 2020, right before the pandemic, Johnson posed for a photograph at the North Omaha coal plant. He pointed at the structure and said, “Most people would drive by that plant and never even think about it.” He is grateful that the Sierra Club knew it was making people sick and decided to do something about it.
Johnson is proud he volunteered to help achieve the mission of Beyond Coal. They were heady times, going to OPPD meetings, protesting, speaking out. “I miss it,” he said.
