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Johnson, Michelle Campbell
Generation X (born 1964 - 1981)
 
Michelle Campbell Johnson was born in Detroit, Michigan.   Her father, a former marketing executive, was also born in Detroit.  Her mother, a retired accounting assistant, was born in Hamtramck, Michigan, a town outside of Detroit.  
 
Growing up in Michigan, Michelle was very active in school and in outside extra-curricular activities. She attended Lutheran school from K-6th grade and Catholic school from 7th - 12th grade.   She studied tap, ballet and jazz dancing, was an active member of the Girl Scouts of America, was the captain of her high school cheerleading team and was an officer of the National Honor Society.  She was also a gold-medalist track athlete in the 400 meter and 800 meter relay races.  This was achieved during her parochial tenor in school and on a local level. 
 
She attended Michigan State University and received a Bachelor’s  in Electrical Engineering.  In 2000, she received her Master’s in Project Management from The George Washington University.  In addition to living in Michigan, Michelle's professional career has afforded her the opportunity to live in Illinois, Massachusetts, and in New York where she currently resides. 
 
Michelle Campbell works as an executive consultant in the Telecommunications field.  Over the course of her professional career, she has been honored with the some of the following awards and recognition:
 
  • Who’s Who in Black Chicago    
  • Top 25 Women of Chicago
  • Product Manager of the Year for Outstanding Achievement   
  • Black Engineer of the Year Award - Modern Day Technology Leader
 
Michelle describes her most significant life accomplishments as being the mother of two healthy sons, addressing the United Nations on how to use broadband technology for disaster recovery, becoming a corporate executive, and becoming the first African-American woman in her chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).
 
In addition to Michelle being one of the few African-American women of the DAR, her mother, 99-year old grandmother, and four cousins are also African-American women currently in the DAR.  Passing along the tradition, Michelle's sons, Brice and Colin, are members of the Children of the American Revolution.

Johnson, Michelle Campbell

  • Oral History Summary

    Listen to

     

    Telecom Trailblazer. Protecting the world. John Hart’s city and countryside dual family.

     

    Michelle provides a blueprint for how women can advance to the executive level in corporate America and survive a college engineering program by sharing the story of her rise to leadership in the telecommunications industry which has included addressing the United Nations on communications solutions during global catastrophes. Michelle talks about growing up in Detroit, Michigan and how her upbringing molded her for earning a bachelor's in Electrical Engineering and a master’s in Project Management, then subsequently creating some of the first cellular devices, leading a team to deploy the first broadband technologies to keep first responders safe, and meeting with the NYPD chief of police on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 to discuss lessons learned and how to improve future telecommunications during a disaster response effort. She begins her story of how she became the family historian and traveled to Macon, Georgia to research her lineage. Michelle shares the story of her ancestor’s acknowledged white city and black rural dual-family arrangement in Macon, Georgia. She talks about how she presented her lineage research findings of the prominent John Hart, grandson of Revolutionary War patriot Robert Hart, providing for her black ancestor Hettie Valentine and their children on his land in the countryside while also maintaining a white family in the city, at an impromptu gathering of 100 family members, which she coordinated; gathering the white and black Hart families together to formally present their lineage back to William the Conqueror; visiting the white and black Hart cemeteries together with the granddaughter of John Hart's second white wife; having her grandmother Beulah join the Daughters of the American Revolution at 99 years old during the COVID-19 pandemic after surviving the virus, a brain tumor from her earlier years and being shot in the head by white men during a racist attack; and her sons being members of the Children of the American Revolution.

     

    Michelle Campbell Johnson's oral history was recorded on August 15, 2020.

  • DAR Service

    Membership State: Illinois

     

  • DAR Patriot Ancestor(s)

    Hart, Robert: Georgia

    European Descent Male

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