Conversations with Ebony Johnson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ebony Johnson.

Hi Ebony, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My favorite thing is a great conversation with great people and delicious food. When I was younger, some of my family members thought that I would be a lawyer because I was smart and liked to argue! Now, I create conversation through my curiosity to explore what can be, my rebellion to question what we’ve been told to believe, and my desire to decolonize.

School was a way for me to engage with people and various subjects. After high school at Lincoln College Prep in KC, I went to undergrad at FAMU (Bachelor’s in Business Administration) and graduate school at Wayne State University (MBA).

My first professional career was with Hallmark Cards, Inc., and then, I moved into business incubation (entrepreneurial start-up world) at Detroit’s TechTown with Wayne State’s Research and Technology Park. After that, I came back home to KC and began broadcasting at KKFI. In addition, I met a friend, Rashaan Gilmore, who also turned into a colleague in the healthcare field at BlaqOut (a pharmacy and wellness organization focused on HIV and AIDS prevention in the Black LGBTQ community).

I’ve played in Community radio for the past six years. It provides a splendid vehicle for me to be as colorful in my production as I choose to be. I can talk with anyone about anything that is of interest to me and share it with the world. A true gift of freedom, growth, and joy wrapped in one.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The terrain has been a mixture of all of the human emotions, which I realize that none of us can escape! I am naturally a jubilant person and am becoming more appreciative of the contrasts that help me know what I don’t want. There is room for the sun and the moon, both shine their light at just the right time.

I heard an artist talk about the importance of the balance of having enough contrast within a painting so that it allows people to focus on the images being presented. This is a great way for me to recognize the wholeness of pain and joy.

Deciding over and over again that I am more and life is full of stuff to make what I choose is where I am now. Knowing that my freedom comes from my ability to attend to what pleases, soothes, and delights me without making someone else responsible for my comfort and joy. And also knowing that I could never be responsible for the way anyone else feels. However, we do influence each other and I desire to influence through rich conversation.

The ultimate challenge is who I believe that I am.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As the Director of Operations at BlaqOut, I build relationships and tend to the flow of how we do what we do—provide culturally relevant health care to black folks.

I am proud of the freedom to express as much blackness as I want and with as much tenderness as I can. Community care is a lifeline and heartfelt appreciation.

I Host, Produce and Engineer a weekly live radio talk show, Ebony’s Bones.

It is a show that explores a University of topics full of questions with the aim to decolonize.

My co-host is AJ Lowe and we have a wonderful time engaging with our audience.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Smart, argumentative, curious about the world, playful, wanted to be right and get it right, spiritually inclined, a friend. I enjoyed family dinners, going to the movies, reading, writing poetry, and public speaking.

The most fun summers were riding bikes with my siblings and cousins. Eating sunflowers seeds, candy, and drinking pina colada pop.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kkfi.org/program/ebonys-bones/
• Instagram: @ebonysbones
• Facebook: @ebonysbones
• Twitter: @ebonymjohnson

Image Credits
Kenny Johnson, D. Rashaan, Gilmore Natasha, Ria El-Scari Ebony, and M. Johnson AJ