Taylor, E. Joanne,

Pauline Byrd was born February 5, 1904, the daughter of Oscar and Edith Hill (Battles) Byrd. She was the first African American graduate of Kalamazoo College. In 1949 she returned to Kalamazoo and taught at Lincoln Elementary and Woodward Junior High, retiring in 1969 from Kalamazoo Central High School. She married Chester H. Taylor who died in 1953 and Clifford C. Johnson who died in 1967. Johnson was active in the Kalamazoo Republic Party. Her writings were published in the Portage Herald Headliner, the Kalamazoo News, the English Review, Chicago Defender, Christian Science Monitor and the Pittsburgh Courier. She was the second president of the Douglass Community Association and the first African American member of the local chapter of the American Association of University Women. Johnson died December 2, 1988.