The Washington Post
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Burton W. Johnson, 89, the District’s first African American fire chief, died of a heart attack Aug. 17 at Providence Hospital. He lived in the District.
His five-year tenure in the top post was marked by budget constraints that forced the closure of four of the department’s 53 units for a time. In 1974, Mr. Johnson ordered the recruitment and hiring of more minority firefighters and opened the department’s doors to women for the first time.
Racial tensions had percolated for years in the city’s predominantly white fire department. Mr. Johnson’s appointment as chief in 1973 prompted a white competitor to file discrimination charges. Black firefighters filed bias charges about practices in some firehouses. When Mr. Johnson retired and recommended a black candidate to succeed him, a white candidate alleged that racial politics prevented him from getting the job.
Mr. Johnson, who joined the fire department in 1943, had dealt with discrimination in his career. It took him more than 20 years to rise above the rank of private, a pattern that a Washington Post editorial at the time noted was not uncommon for African American firefighters. Mayor Walter E. Washington said that when he took office, he found the city’s severest racial tensions in the fire department; some white firefighters refused to use the same coffeepots as their black colleagues.
Mr. Johnson, a Philadelphia native, moved to Washington as a boy and graduated in 1934 from Dunbar High School, where he was a member of the track and field team and the cadet corps. He joined the all-black Engine Company No. 4 in January 1943. Months later, he enlisted in the Army and served in the infantry in New Guinea during World War II. He was discharged in 1946 as a first sergeant; he served a second tour in 1949.
While Mr. Johnson worked as a firefighter, he attended American University, Ohio State University, the University of Maryland and Purdue University. He became the city’s fire marshal from 1970 to 1973.
Like every local fire chief before him since World War II, Mr. Johnson took a disability pension when he retired in 1978. That pension came under public scrutiny because Mr. Johnson, Police Chief Maurice J. Cullinane and Assistant Police Chief Tilmon B. O’Bryant retired on the tax-free disability pensions within a few months of one another.
A District retirement board approved his $33,250 pension based on an injury he suffered in an on-duty fall from a roof in 1943, aggravated by two off-duty auto accidents and further exacerbated while examining a float at the Cherry Blossom Festival while he was chief. Because of a degenerated disc, he had worn a back brace since 1969, his attorney told the board at the time.
After retirement, Mr. Johnson volunteered for a variety of civic activities. He was a board member of the Metropolitan Police Boys and Girls Club and the Center for Community Justice, a residents complaint center and mediation service at Superior Court, where 100 trained community volunteers help settle some disputes outside courts. Mr. Johnson also served on a standing committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and the Collington Episcopal Life Care Community. He was past president of the First Friday Club at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. He was also a Mason, a member of the Kiwanis Club, the Pigskin Club and the Touchdown Club.
His wife, Theresa W. Johnson, died in 1972.
Survivors include a daughter, Brenda Ford of Washington, and a sister, Sylvia Brown of Upper Marlboro.
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