---

BY MENGHAN JIN

In print | Published April 15, 2010

While canvassing through the city of Chester, Tina Johnson met a woman struggling to get state support and funding to build a safe haven for homeless women. When Johnson told her that she would offer her support if elected into the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, the woman responded, “I have been waiting for you.”

Johnson is trying to secure a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives 159th District in Delaware County in the first contested Democratic primary race ever held in the District.

Johnson will be challenging incumbent Thaddeus Kirkland, a Democrat who has served as state representative in the 159th district for 18 years. Although Johnson does not have political experience, she said that, as an activist in Chester, she is ready to help an area that is frequently ignored by politicians.

“I decided that I was sick of complaining about the things that were wrong and I was either going to be quiet about that or to do something. … I’m not one to be quiet,” Johnson said. “If you want something to change, you have to change the winds, you have to change the political conversation.”

Swarthmore involvement
On campus, Johnson’s relationships with several students and faculty have helped her campaign get off the ground. Many of these relationships at college have been formed out of the Chester’s Community Grocery Co-op, a community owned and operated grocery store that Johnson spearheaded five years ago.

Right after Johnson announced her candidacy earlier this year, she reached out to Alice Evans ’10, who worked with her last summer through the Lang Center at the Chester Co-op.

“She called me to see if she could meet with me to talk about using Swarthmore students as a resource in campaigning,” Evans said. “She doesn’t have a huge treasury … and doesn’t have a whole lot of existing political backing and so she’s really using a lot of her personal connections and connections she’s made through her previous work with the Co-op.”

For the Community-Based Learning component of professor of religion Mark Wallace’s Religion and Ecology class, Evans and others will have a booth this Sunday at the Swarthmore Charity Fun Fair to raise money for the Co-op.

Associate professor of political science Keith Reeves has also formed a close relationship with Johnson. The two worked together five years ago on the development of the Chester Co-op, and now he occasionally invites her to teach a class in one of his honors seminars.

Currently, he is conducting behind the scenes policy research for her campaign, formulating strategies to help her get ahead.

Johnson’s student support is also strong. With Emily McAfee ’13, Sachie Hayakawa ’13, Natali Cortes ’13 and Aden Tedla ’12, Evans attended Johnson’s campaign kick-off party in Chester.

All students in attendance provided positive feedback on meeting Johnson at the party and noted that they admired her ability to relate with other people.

“There was a little baby at the campaign party and she’s the candidate, she’s not the babysitter, but she went over there and picked her up and played with her,” McAfee said.

The campaign
Johnson first made her name known with the founding of the Chester Co-op five years ago. Johnson said that she spearheaded the Co-op when she realized that Chester residents’ lack of access to affordable and fresh produce was negatively impacting their health. Even now, however, the city of Chester lacks a supermarket.

For decades, the city of Chester has also suffered from underperforming schools, a collapsing tax base and an absence of jobs, said Wallace, who has written about environmental justice issues in Chester.

For the past eighteen years, Wallace added, Kirkland has done little to improve conditions in Chester.

“Without education and without jobs, people lose hope,” Wallace said. “The people in Chester are wonderful. They’re committed to their families, they want to work, they’re very giving and kind-hearted, but many of them suffer from hopelessness because they don’t have the education that will allow them to enter the job market.”

Committed to the welfare of Chester residents, Johnson has the potential to transform Chester’s school system and greatly increase the well-being of residents with more job and investment opportunities, Wallace said.

“I live in hope,” he said. “I support her and I live in hope that she will be elected.”

Some of Johnson’s supporters said that her leadership role with the Co-op allowed her to interact with a diverse group of community members, giving her an opportunity to develop friendships that have become important to her grassroots campaign.

“That’s the foundation of her campaign — drawing on friends and family,” McAfee said.

Residents of Chester have been very receptive of Johnson’s campaign. “They’re very excited and very proud of her for taking this courageous step,” Reeves said.

Reeves said that he is confident that Johnson will win not only the primary against Kirkland but also the general election in November, which is when she could secure a seat in the state house.

“We’re not under any illusions that this will be an easy effort, but I believe ultimately she will prevail,” Reeves said. “If she is elected, she’s going to be a wonderful representative for all the constituents in the District, which includes not only Chester but lots of other communities that for a long period of time have really not had their voices heard in Harrisburg.”

Johnson’s twin sister Nessie said that the fact Tina is making history just by running against Kirkland has not fazed her yet.

“Since she announced to the family that she was running, she has been full of excitement,” Nessie said. “There’s no hesitation about it.”

For the past couple months, Johnson has been going out into the community, knocking on doors with the help of volunteers from students and community members, to meet new people and get her story out in the open.

“I’m asking community members to put me in a position to do the heavy lifting, and part of that heavy lifting is … to let them know one person cannot change a community,” Johnson said. “It takes … a lot of everyone doing the work together to find the solutions.”

The biggest challenge, Evans said, will be getting people in Chester as well on campus to vote at the primaries on May 18. To help, Evans hopes to spread word of Johnson’s historic campaign on campus and provide transportation to the polls.

“Because this is the first primary in our history … people are just not used to going to vote in the primaries because they don’t have a choice,” Johnson said.

But with the help of Reeves, Swarthmore students and other Chester community members, Johnson will continue in the next month to reaching out to the community and make herself known.

“We have very specific internal targets for our localization strategy,” Wallace said, “and we have a wonderful set of volunteers who are extraordinarily enthusiastic.”

---

« RETURN TO NEWS

« PREV ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE »