Women of Achievement: Wilhelmina P. Johnson
Wilhelmina P. Johnson
Photo by Jana E. Pye
Each year the Miss South Carolina Scholarship Organization honors a Woman of Achievement at the
state pageant. The pageant recognizes and honors women who, through their works and lives, have significantly improved the lives of women in our great state. This year’s award will be special since the pageant is celebrating its 80th anniversary.
The Miss S.C. Sweet Potato Festival Pageant and Miss Darlington High School pageants under the direction of Will Isgett nominated three very deserving women this year, all who call Darlington County home.
Miss S.C. Sweet Potato Festival Teen Kinsley Odom nominated long time Darlington County council woman and founder of the Darlington County Cultural Realism Center Wilhelmina P. Johnson.
The winner of the award will be announced at the Miss South Carolina Scholarship Organization’s awards banquet on June 24th in Columbia.
Wilhelmina P. Johnson can be considered as a true legend in the Darlington County region of South Carolina. The work she has done with bettering individuals and working to make sure they succeed is very evident not only in her hometown, but also state and nationwide. She is the true epitome of what achievement stands for and no one will ever be able to accomplish all of the things she has in life. From a tender age, Johnson knew that she wanted to make a difference in the lives of others but just didn’t know how she was going to do it.
Some 43 years ago she was instrumental in founding the Darlington County Cultural Realism Center, a place for her children and the children in her neighborhood to get therapeutic recreation that included performing arts, modeling, self-defense, living skills, ethnic history and arts and crafts in an old church on Coker Street in Darlington. She did this without no major government grants or funds to provide these services and still does to this day. The center has now blossomed into five buildings and still offers all of the great services it started with and even more.
The center most recently hosted a three day Darlington County Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Celebration for young women and men between the ages of 17 and 28 with a theme of “World Unity-Peace, Hope, Love and Understanding. The center also served as a state sponsor and hosted the Miss S.C. Hal Jackson Talented Teen pageant for 35 years until it ended in 2010 after Jackson’s death. Hundreds of young ladies came through the doors of the center to participate including former Miss South Carolina and Miss America Kimberly Aiken. Although Aiken didn’t win, she has gone onto to accomplish great things in her life, and Johnson was a small part of that.
Born to a sharecropper in rural Lee County, Johnson worked her way through S.C. State College with the help of a Jewish family in New York City, and earned her Masters of Education Degree and worked for Clemson Extension Services and later retired as an educator in the Darlington County School District. She was the featured speaker at the South Carolina Bicentennial Celebration in 1976 and has directed many events with the USDA, the South Carolina Arts Commission, and the National Endowments for the Arts. She has been responsible for researching and erecting many historical Markers for African-Americans in the Darlington County area and currently serves on the Darlington County Council, a position she has had held for more than 20 years. She also served as the Chairman of Council in 2010 and has been named Woman of the Year for Darlington County through the South Carolina Governor’s Office and was named a Hero of the Day on CBS Morning News just to name a few.
To know Ms. Johnson is to know someone who has contributed so much to society and when asking her what she will do for the rest of her life, she said she had many more years to continue to make a difference in any way she can. From helping the kids in our area, to making sure an elderly individual is taken to the store to get food, Johnson will be there for them.