Johnnie Carr

Who was Johnnie Carr?

Johnnie Rebecca Daniels Carr was a leader in the Civil Rights movement in the United States from 1955 until her death.

In 1967, Carr became President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, succeeding the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Carr held this office until she died.

Carr was a childhood friend of Rosa Parks and is considered, along with Parks, to be an important face in the Civil Rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama. According to Morris Dees, one of three founders of Montgomery's Southern Poverty Law Center, "Johnnie Carr is one of the three major icons of the Civil Rights Movement: Dr. King, Rosa Parks and Johnnie Carr. I think ultimately, when the final history books are written, she'll be one of the few people remembered for that terrific movement."

Civil Rights pioneer and U.S. Representative John Lewis, D-Ga., said, "Mrs. Carr must be looked on as one of the founders of a new America because she was there with Rosa Parks, E.D. Nixon, Martin Luther King Jr. and so many others."

In 1944, Carr, along with her husband Arlam Carr, Rosa Parks and Raymond Parks, E. D. Nixon, E. G. Jackson, and Irene West organized to defend a black woman near Montgomery who was gang raped by six white men. This core of activists, who canvassed neighborhoods, raised money, sent petitions and postcards to the governor and attorney general of Alabama, later became part of the movement that supported Martin Luther King Jr.