Joshua Johnson serves as the Director of Washington, D.C.-based Jobs for the Future’s National Innovation Hub for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Registered Apprenticeship, which is operated by the organization’s Center for Apprenticeship & Work Based Learning.  

In that role, Johnson (pictured below/photo courtesy of Jobs for the Future’s website) leads efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Apprenticeship, with a specific focus on helping employers make commitments to building inclusive Registered Apprenticeship Programs. 

Johnson penned an interesting Labor Perspective, whose link appears below, that opens as such: 

In 2006, as an Apprentice Construction Craft Laborer in Milwaukee, I helped build one of the I-43 underpasses on Fond Du Lac Avenue.

The bridge is well known throughout Wisconsin for the murals that adorn it, including one that tells the story of a man named Joshua Glover.

Glover, a Black man enslaved in Missouri, escaped from slavery in 1852 and made his way to Wisconsin, a free State.

Two years later, he was caught and arrested under the Fugitive Slave Act, which meant a return to slavery, a return to the South for trial, or one of many worse fates.

Glover was being held at the Milwaukee County Jailhouse when, as the mural depicts, abolitionists from all around Southeastern Wisconsin, led by a man named Sherman Booth, stormed the jail and helped Glover escape to the Underground Railroad.

He eventually found freedom in Canada.

This story of a Black man achieving freedom, displayed on the side of a bridge that this Black man constructed, makes me proud of Wisconsin and strengthens my passion for advancing the promise of Registered Apprenticeship.

But as we celebrate Black History Month, this story serves as a lingering reminder of the challenges People of Color still have today.

Glover sought a pathway to freedom; today’s Black learners and Workers seek, as I did, pathways to a family-sustaining career with livable wages.

Today’s obstacles, however, are far more insidious and disguised, and can impact people’s access to opportunities to good jobs, good wages, and the economic mobility and dignity that accompany these opportunities.

Apprenticeship has expanded in recent years to new industries and occupations, and now includes a broader, more diverse group of employers and Apprentices.

But the bias (or implicit bias) that pervades our greater culture plays out in the Apprenticeship System, too.

This story of a Black man achieving freedom, displayed on the side of a bridge that this Black man constructed, makes me proud of Wisconsin and strengthens my passion for advancing the promise of Registered Apprenticeship.

To Continue Reading Johnson’s Labor Perspective, Go To: How Registered Apprenticeship Led Me From Black History to Black Opportunity | Jobs for the Future (JFF)