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GREENSBORO — The Rev. Nelson Johnson has been awarded a prize given to people over 60, for work rooted in the events of his youth — and which carries on today.
Johnson, 65, and his wife, Joyce, 62, will accept a 2008 Purpose Prize awarded by Civic Ventures, a national think tank on baby boomers, work and social purpose.

The Johnsons received one of nine $10,000 prizes. Six $100,000 prizes were also awarded.

“In some sense I’ve been doing this work all of my life,” Nelson Johnson said. “But there is a certain amount of wisdom that can come with years. You learn yourself better. You learn your neighbor better.”

The award was granted for the Johnsons’ work on Greensboro’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They launched the two-year project that researched the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings and the events surrounding it in Greensboro.

The shootings happened Nov. 3, 1979, as an anti-Klan march that Johnson organized was forming in the Morningside Homes public housing community. A caravan of Klansmen and Nazis drove into the area and confronted the marchers. In the ensuing gunfire, five anti-Klan marchers were killed and 10 others wounded.

Two long criminal trials brought no convictions for Nazis and Klansmen, who claimed self-defense.

The Johnsons were nominated by Zeb Holler, a chairman of the Beloved Community Center who was co-chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The 2008 Purpose Prize is a program for seniors who are taking on society’s biggest challenges, according to Civic Ventures, the organization that grants the awards.

The Johnsons will accept the prize at an award ceremony at the Encore Careers Summit this week at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

Nelson Johnson said his current projects, such as working on economic justice and cultivating relationships between African American and Latino gangs, are rooted in the same community and justice work he has done his entire life.

“Getting over the generation gap and working closely with young people is exciting,” Johnson said.

Contact Sonja Elmquist at 373-7090 or sonja.elmquist@news-record.com