TAUW LEGENDS: HANNIBAL B. JOHNSON
The TAUW Legends video series preserves the voices and stories of those who shaped our first century of service. As part of our Centennial celebration, Jesse Boudiette, president of Propeller Consulting and Centennial Committee member, sat down with Hannibal B. Johnson, who co-chairs our Centennial Education & History Committee. Hannibal, a Harvard Law School graduate, is an author, attorney, and consultant specializing in diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, human relations, leadership, and non-profit leadership and management.
Join us in continuing Hannibal’s legacy of compassion and community impact. Your gift today in honor of Hannibal helps write the next chapter of our story, ensuring that future generations will have access to the same life-changing services that have touched so many lives over the past century.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Jesse Boudiette: Hannibal, how did you first get involved with Tulsa Area United Way?
Hannibal B. Johnson: Well, one of the first things I did when I got to Tulsa in the mid-1980s was go through Leadership Tulsa. And I got assigned to, or I chose, the Metropolitan Tulsa Urban League Board. And so I interned on that board. The Urban League was a United Way organization. So that was really my first introduction to Tulsa Area United Way.
Jesse: Since those early days, what are some other areas of involvement you’ve had with United Way?
Hannibal: I have been a consultant to the United Way and Leadership Tulsa through a collaboration called New Voices that I helped create with Sharon Gallagher, who was with United Way at the time, and Wendy Thomas, who was the Executive Director of Leadership Tulsa. The idea was there was a void in the community. There were these nonprofit organizations who were interested in diversity, equity, and inclusion. So they were interested in diversifying their boards and their volunteer corps, but they would have this constant refrain of not being able to find people of color, particularly, to be on these boards. So through New Voices, we developed a program to equip, particularly people of color, with the interest and the skills to serve on nonprofit boards and to be engaged in the community. So when that refrain came up, “We can’t find anybody,” well, we had a reservoir of people who had expressed interest in nonprofit board service, who were trained on nonprofit governance, and who were ready to go, just waiting to be asked. And so that continues to this day; it’s a great program.
Jesse: I think my last question is, what did I not ask? What didn’t come up?
Hannibal: Dr. King has this wonderful adage that I like to use: “We are tied together in a single garment of destiny, trapped in a web of mutuality. I cannot be all that I ought to be until you are all that you ought to be. You cannot be all that you ought to be until I’m all that I ought to be.” So it’s the fact that we are inextricably intertwined. And the United Way reminds us of that. And again, the goal is to lift all of us together for the betterment of the community.