Former U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, who represented Dallas in the House for 30 years, died on New Year's Eve. This week, a memorial service and funeral were held in Dallas, bringing a visit from President Joe Biden and eliciting video messages from Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Bill Clinton.
Johnson was the elected to represent Texas' 30th Congressional District in 1992 and served her Dallas constituents for 30 years before retiring in 2023. Prior to her 15 terms in Congress, she served in the Texas House and Senate and the Carter administration.
"Almost every position that she held was accompanied by some sort of first title," SMU associate professor of political science Dr. Matthew Wilson said. "First African-American woman to serve in the Texas Senate, first African-American woman to hold various administrative positions in the federal government, first African-American woman to represent North Texas since reconstruction."
One of the things she excelled at was improving infrastructure in North Texas, helping put together bipartisan support for transportation, DART, and the Trinity River project, said Gromer Jeffers, a political writer at The Dallas Morning News.
"She believed in relationships and she did not see Republicans as an enemy," he said. "She understood that they had a duty to their constituents as well. And so, first and foremost, she wanted to find common ground. There are a lot of issues that Democrats and Republicans have argued about since the founding of those parties. But she knew that most of the staff, especially on projects and moving dirt for improvement projects and things like that, that you could find common ground, that you could work with Republicans."
Johnson will be buried at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin on Wednesday.
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