For Walter T. Johnson III, public service has always been the family business.
His mother, the late Yvonne Johnson, was a lifelong community activist and the first Black mayor of Greensboro. A political mentor to generations of area leaders, she was still serving as Mayor Pro Tem when she died in office in 2024 at the age of 82.
His father, Walter Johnson, Jr., was one of the first Black students to enroll in Duke University’s School of Law in 1961. He helped desegregate Greensboro’s schools as chairman of the school board.
Still, he didn’t always see himself following them into politics.
“Initially, it was not something that was appealing to me,” Johnson said.
But after years as a public school teacher, Johnson is making his first run for office, facing Lisa McMillan for the Democratic nomination for the 7th district seat on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners.
Johnson, who taught at Dudley High School and now teaches business classes at Chatham Early College, said he has the experience and financial acumen to lead on county budget matters and school funding. He graduated from NC A&T State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. He has been endorsed by the Guilford County Association of Educators, NC House Rep. Amos Quick, and Guilford County Board of Education members Bettye Jenkins and Khem Irby.
As he steps into the local political arena, he said, he wishes he could talk to his parents.
“When something good happens, you want to pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey Mom, Dad!’” he said. Now, he and his siblings call each other.
The biggest issues in his district are the need for economic development and livable wages, Johnson said. But the most pressing issues facing the county as a whole are funding for schools and law enforcement.
He’s also a big proponent of creating youth job programs.
“[W]e can keep our kids occupied with positive things in the summertime,” he said, citing the city of Richmond’s investment in summer youth programming. The city credits the move with a 64% decrease in youth being shot and 40% decrease in their involvement in violent incidents between 2017 and 2023.
Studies show the cost of a single murder climbs into the millions of dollars, Johnson said, including investigation, court, and mental health treatment costs. That adds up.
According to the North Carolina State Board of Investigation, murder across Guilford County went down between 2023 and 2024, from 91 in 2023 to 54 in 2024, but robbery and aggravated assault went up.
The huge housing shortfall in the county is also a concern, Johnson said. A 2024 report examining projected housing needs between 2024-2029 reveals a shortage of 33,210 homes in Guilford County. Johnson would like to see more old buildings renovated.
Johnson formerly worked for Project Homestead from 1998 to 2002, a nonprofit that built homes for those with low income. It filed for bankruptcy in 2004 after being accused of misusing city funds.
Johnson said that he wasn’t involved in the organization’s accounting side and was unaware of any impropriety; he says he simply wrote grants and worked in public relations. In spite of the organization’s shortcomings, Johnson noted the positives and that the program helped people build credit.
“We bought old apartments,” he said, “We fixed them up. We put the people that wanted houses in those apartments for 12-18 months.”
When people paid their rent on time, the organization could send that history to the bank, getting loans pre-approved for people who wouldn’t have otherwise qualified.
Johnson met with The Thread while engaging with voters outside the Old Guilford County Courthouse, but he’s also leaning into virtual engagement to get out the vote, hosting town halls once a week via Zoom in what he calls “Tuesday Talks.”
“I don’t believe in just telling people what my vision is,” he said. “I want to let them know what the vision is, but here are the action steps we need to take to get it done.”
For Johnson, those steps include pushing for HB 305, a ballot measure this November that will collect tax money for teacher salary supplements, fire protection equipment and services, and Guilford Technical Community College. It’s predicted to generate $25 million in revenue.
“I look at it like this,” Johnson said. “We work a job, and we want to find the best job we can have to bring the most money into our household. That’s our salary.”
The county and the city’s “salaries” are taxes collected from its residents, Johnson said, and if people want to live in an area that’s safe and progressive, then local governments are going to have to find a way to make more money.
That benefits everyone, Johnson posited.
“When you increase the salary, you can do better things,” he said.
