Urban League's New President Looks to Build Upon Chapter's Mission

Candy Johnson grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Clarksville, Tennessee, where she thought she would always live and one day become mayor.

By age 25, Johnson was elected to the Clarksville City Council in 2008 as the youngest council member ever elected in the city after working as a City Hall intern while at Austin Peay State University and defending her hometown neighborhood from attempts to take over what the city deemed a "blighted neighborhood" by eminent domain.

"I learned a lot about advocacy, activism and the fight to preserve neighborhoods that were gentrified and how you could grow together," she said.

Those traits remain with Candy Johnson in her new role as President and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga (Chattanooga, TN).

Johnson, who came to Chattanooga nearly four years ago with her husband, Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Bryan Johnson, succeeded the late Warren E. Logan Jr. as head of the Chattanooga Urban League chapter shortly before Logan's death last month. Although her address and career path have changed from her childhood expectations, Candy Johnson remains committed to working on economic empowerment and equity.

"I feel like my whole life has helped prepare me for this job," Johnson said of her new post at the local Urban League.

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