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GREENSBORO - This can be said without reservation: If City Councilwoman Yvonne Johnson wins the election for mayor, she will be hugger-in-chief.

The lady likes to throw an arm around a neck — even those of her adversaries.

But there's also this: If she deems it appropriate, she'll dole out verbal smackdowns like Halloween candy. Take January, for example, when she discovered at a retreat that Mayor Keith Holliday hadn't consulted with four council members about the city's response to a controversial report on the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings.

"I resent the hell out of it, not being called," said Johnson, slapping her hand on the table. "If you're going to do it for one, do it for all, damn it."

She speaks her mind — even to those she considers friends.

"I am many things," said Johnson, 64, who faces downtown developer Milton Kern on Nov. 6.

"There is no conflict in my spirit about that."

If Johnson wins, she would be the city's first black mayor and the second female.

She is a popular, well-known candidate. Johnson is the only candidate from eastern Greensboro to have won an at-large seat, which means she had to secure votes from black and white voters. And she's done it seven times.

For three of those terms, she won more votes than the other at-large winners, making her mayor pro tem.

She leads One Step Further, a nonprofit that offers nonviolent offenders an alternative to prison. The job has toughened her, exposing her to the best and worst people can become.

It's also sharpened her mediation skills. Johnson said she would put those to use immediately if elected mayor, by holding a "speak-out" on controversies within the Greensboro Police Department.

Former Chief David Wray resigned in 2006 after allegations that the department's special intelligence unit targeted black officers for unfair internal investigation. That, coupled with accusations of mismanagement, prompted City Manager Mitchell Johnson to ask the city's legal office and a private consulting firm to determine what, if anything, hurt the department under Wray.

In September, two former members of the special intelligence unit were indicted on felony charges, culminating a yearlong investigation into alleged abuses of power.

Wray supporters say Mitchell Johnson gave in to black leaders and overreacted in disciplining Wray. Some in the black community say the city manager waited too long to discipline Wray, letting unfair treatment of African American officers fester.

Yvonne Johnson, along with her eight colleagues on the City Council, has supported Mitchell Johnson's handling of the situation. She has pushed — perhaps harder than some members — for the release of more information related to the case.

Yvonne Johnson said people are angry. And angry people want to be heard.

The speak-outs, she said, will scratch that itch. And when it's over? "We'll put our hands together and agree to disagree," she said.

"Greensboro is known for civility at a time when it could have been known for violence," she said of the sit-in movement she supported as a teenager by marching in protests.

She is the quintessential Steel Magnolia: sweet, loving and dripping with Southern charm. She is, after all, the councilwoman who once invited brusque Coliseum Director Matt Brown — reared north of the Mason-Dixon line — for a soul-food meal at United House of Prayer for All People.

She recommended that Brown try the pig's feet and making small talk with business contacts. "You can't just jump into business with Southern folk," she remembered telling him, explaining how country people love a good story. "That's just part of their cognitive map."

Some assume the woman who seems so peaceful and warm gets pushed around, said Betty Cone, a longtime friend and co-chairwoman of Johnson's campaign.

They are wrong, Cone said.

"If you know Yvonne, you know that about her," she said. "She can like you and hug you to death, then tell you that you are wrong or that you don't have all the facts."

Like that day back in January, when she learned how Holliday handled the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report on the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings and its aftermath.

The report, released in 2006, blamed the Klansmen and Nazi shooters and the Greensboro Police Department for the violence, which killed five and wounded 10. The report also found that the march's organizers, members of the Communist Workers Party, share some responsibility, "albeit lesser."

The report recommends that the city and the police department apologize for the department's role in the shootings.

Holliday didn't want the city to respond to the report, checked with four white council members and discovered he had a majority. He didn't consult Johnson or the two other black members. Hence the cursing and hand-slapping on Johnson's part.

Holliday apologized. They made up — no hard feelings or anything. But Johnson has no regrets and would have voted to acknowledge the report.

"I believed I was right that day," she said.

"Why would you exclude anybody?"

During times like that, she remembers the motto of an old friend, the late Councilwoman Claudette Burroughs-White: "You gotta stand, girl."

Johnson admits this much about such outbursts: She can get away with saying things that not everybody can.

Ask her why and she simply shrugs.

Marc Isaacson, an attorney and longtime Johnson supporter, said her warmth and toughness combine to create something special.

"I think the combination of those two leads to fairness," said Isaacson, who often appears before the City Council representing developers on zoning matters.

Johnson is "a fair-minded person who can make tough decisions in the best interest of the city," he said.

Isaacson, his attorney-father Henry Isaacson and other family members have contributed $850 to Johnson's campaign.

Marc and Henry Isaacson were outside City Hall on April 19, when Johnson announced her run for mayor. On that day, dressed in a trademark purple suit, she seemingly hugged half of Greensboro — supporters, reporters, passers-by.

Then, she pledged to be a tough, fair mayor.

"Most of the time," she said, "I'm laid-back and pretty cool. But if it's an issue of justice, then I am passionate."

Contact Margaret Moffett Banks at 373-7031 or mbanks@news-record.com