Everyone’s head was dizzy and every ear rang with pain as the Mayor’s gavel smashed down again and again.
Then-Fitchburg mayor Jason Gonzalez was trying to restore order to what had become a chaotic scene in the chambers of the Fitchburg Common Council on an unseasonably warm autumn night in 2017.
Fitchburg’s council was discussing the removal of a budget item benefiting the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County (BGCDC), a seemingly insignificant move in the universe of budget voting.
Yet it was a treacherous move, one that put the council in the crosshairs of BGCDC CEO Michael Johnson, who viewed the move as nefarious and, worse yet, a dehumanizing slap in the face of Dane County’s youth.
Michael Johnson wasn’t having it. Period. And so off he went to a meeting of Fitchburg’s common council to voice his displeasure while demanding the funding remain in place.
But Johnson didn’t arrive alone. The council chambers were filled to the brim during public comment, much of which was getting out of hand. People were calling council members out by name for daring to betray the Club and Gonzalez slammed his gavel down attempting to make it stop.
It was wild.
Fitchburg police were called when One City Schools CEO Kaleem Caire stepped out of bounds, according to mayor Gonzalez. Local media members were accosted by officials saying the media should be outside the chamber in the hallway; Women Gonzalez was accused of harassing sat in the chamber and lustily said hello to him; Community leaders like Sina Davis, Wanda Smith, Caliph Muab-El, and even young teen actor Ajani Carr joined the fray to voice their displeasure.
At the center of the storm was Johnson orchestrating it all and increasing the temperature on an already boiling cauldron.
Don’t take it from the kids
“Come sit me down then,” Michael Johnson shouted at Fitchburg city administrator Patrick Marsh at a subsequent Fitchburg council meeting.
Council was again discussing the item, this time to a fairly empty chamber. During a recess, Johnson was confronting then-Alder, now-Mayor Julia Aratta-Fratta for alleged conflicts of interest. Marsh had had enough and told Michael Johnson to sit down.
Johnson, a huge man to say the least, challenged Marsh to physically make him sit down.
Later on, during a proceeding in which Gonzalez was publicly apologizing to Kaleem Caire for calling the police on him, Johnson, who had said he was refusing to come to the event, showed up suddenly. He screamed at Gonzalez that if the mayor wanted to do things to help the kids, Johnson would always be there to work with him.
“But if you try to take anything from these kids,” Johnson yelled, pointing aggressively at Gonzalez, “I’m gonna be right here, my friend”. And bounced.
Box Office
And so it was with Michael Johnson. He lived by the words he shouted at Gonzalez. Johnson was like a promoter who always did what was best for business and his business was whatever benefitted youths in the community.
The Fitchburg scene was my first time covering local politics just a few months after joining Madison365.
Thing is, I can’t even remember what ended up happening with the budget item. It doesn’t even matter. Whatever the outcome was, it felt like Michael Johnson won. And that’s his legacy.
I had met Michael Johnson a handful of times before that, most notably during a drive he was doing to bring aid to people devastated by a Texas hurricane.
I’d been very nervous going into that event because my boss Henry Sanders was going to be there and I wanted to do a perfect job. Michael Johnson made covering it so easy. He gave all the interviews and information I was going to need, posed for photos, introduced me to everyone and was heartfelt the entire time.
Watching Johnson work a problem or a crowd was always box office. His energy and wit were unmatched, as was the ever-increasing scope of his reach. Allen Iverson at a White Party? Who pulls that off?
(Photo: BGCDC)
Wow…you really think she could be lying?
On a humid night in June 2020, a young biracial woman stopped at a red light in downtown Madison. Tensions were at unprecedented levels in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd and protesters had been at it heavily all summer, as had truck loads of people running over demonstrators and violence had been flowing in every direction, especially downtown.
The young woman said at a red light a truck full of white men pulled next to her and doused her with flammable fluids and lit her on fire.
It was sure to be the worst hate crime in Madison’s history and as the city reporter for The Capital Times, I was all over it.
Michael Johnson was representing the family as a spokesman. Everyone wanted justice brought to these guys. The FBI was even involved. Madison Police literally used the young woman’s phone to recreate her entire drive.
Then nothing. Weeks passed and then a month. I called the FBI agent investigating. He told me the FBI is basically a powerless organization that sometimes helps local law enforcement do things and he couldn’t really help, so sorry.
What?
Madison police were even more evasive. They were sure they’d get to the bottom of it somehow. Someday. Probably.
As time wore on, it became obvious that perhaps this young woman was lying about the incident.
No public figure in Madison had a temper that goes 0-85 quite like Michael Johnson’s. I’d seen it firsthand and wanted no part of it.
I dialed his number bracing myself, hating myself, filled with fear and anxiety, ready to have my head kicked off over the phone. I was going to straight up imply that she was not being honest and was ready to get cussed out for an hour by Michael Johnson.
“Aw, for real..?” Michael said in a subdued tone of voice, highly uncharacteristic of him. “I mean, wow. I guess maybe she could be making it up.”
I dropped my phone. Michael already knew.
“I just didn’t wanna say anything,” he said. It was stunning. He had known for a minute, but was polite enough to the people involved not to say anything.
When I come back like Jordan wearin’ the 45
Not everyone liked Johnson’s leadership style. He didn’t care about perceptions or feelings, or really anything other than the task at hand.
Never was this more apparent than when he left the Boys and Girls Club for a gig in Cincinnati, one of America’s great bastions of systemic racism. Johnson down there was going to be interesting.
Meanwhile, new leadership was attempting to bring the Club to Sun Prairie – also one of America’s great bastions of systemic racism.
Sun Prairie’s city council wasn’t even close to having “those people’s kids” (that’s a direct quote) running amok on decent citizens’ properties and acting a different color in the streets of Sun Prairie. One by one, in the polar opposite of the Fitchburg council meeting, residents of Sun Prairie voiced their displeasure at having the types of people the Club served in town at all.
There would be no teen takeovers in Sun Prairie, to say the least, and Club leadership was trying hard but lacked Michael Johnson’s unique charisma and networking.
Like the Chicago Bulls playing without Michael Jordan in 1994, the Club’s efforts died on the vine. They needed a closer to overcome the odds. They needed Michael Johnson.
Luckily, things had gone south in Cincy, and back Johnson came to Madison. His timing could not have been better. The Club’s board had not named a new CEO. Johnson need not apply. He simply retook his position as Club CEO.
A return to Sun Prairie City Council, this time with Johnson in the fold, yielded wildly different results, and the Club’s Sun Prairie location was soon under construction.
Johnson himself took a sledgehammer during the groundbreaking event for that facility.
After that event, when everyone else had gone home, I sat down with him and he listened as I lamented my career at Cap Times and talked about all the racial microaggressions I went through there.
This is what Johnson was best at. I told him that because I was the only Black reporter, and one with a difficult background and youth, I couldn’t just quit. I had to carry the torch and the flag for communities of color or else the next person might not get the opportunity I had.
He told me I can’t carry anyone else’s torch.
“It’s not on you to be something for the Black community or anyone else,” he said. “You gotta know your own value and if you aren’t receiving it there, you go somewhere else. But it’s not on you to be something for other Black people or anybody.”
About three weeks ago I began planning to reach out to Michael again. I again felt at a crossroads in my life and career. I needed his advice on whether to continue doing as I was for this current outlet or move to something else.
But I kept putting it off, thinking I’ll always see Michael somewhere and we can sit down then. His untimely passing has so many ripples in so many people’s lives, including mine.
People said he was inspirational. People said he was fake. People said he was a strong leader. People said he was a bully. People said he always inserted himself in every affair whether it concerned him or not.
“There are people who are social media warriors who like to criticize me but don’t do shit for the community,” Johnson told me in a 2023 interview. “I’ve learned to just ignore them and keep grinding for the kids. During the holidays, we keep buying people cars and trying to inspire people who are the most vulnerable.
“And I’m not gonna apologize.”
