Freed POW Is Black L.A.’s Joy

Broad yellow ribbons encircle thick sugar pines in the grassy median on Degnan Boulevard, the street that leads into Leimert Park Village, the cultural heartland of black Los Angeles. Small American flags are stapled to the trunks, above signs reading “Bring Shoshana Home.”

Thin yellow ribbons ring trees on both sides of Manhattan Place, and around the corner on West 54th Street in front of the First United Christian Church in South L.A. On those trees and the church’s pulpit, bright posters plead “Bring Shoshana Home.”

Today, Army Spc. Shoshana Johnson is safe.

The cook with the 507th Maintenance Company was taken prisoner in Iraq on March 23 with a group of soldiers including Pfc. Jessica Lynch. Because Johnson is black, her fate resonated with many African Americans in Los Angeles -- more than 700 miles from El Paso, Texas, where her 2-year-old daughter lives with her parents.

Johnson’s photo is everywhere. On the bulletin board at St. Brigid, the predominantly black Roman Catholic Church on Western Avenue. And in uniform, smiling, on the front page of the current L.A. Watts Times, a free weekly with a circulation of 25,500 aimed at black readers and distributed in Leimert Park, South L.A., downtown, Mid-Wilshire, Inglewood and Long Beach.

“It’s a national story,” said assistant editor Aisha Mori Coleman, who decided to reprint the profile of Johnson and her military family from the El Paso Times. “We figured that it would connect with the readers. They would want to know that she is the only black female POW.”

A different picture, that of the frightened, captive Johnson, is inside the current Los Angeles Sentinel, the region’s largest-circulation paid black weekly, alongside a story about a recent radio interview with her relatives on “L.A. Speaks Out.” That Saturday morning talk show, with a listenership of 30,000, is hosted by Jacquie Stephens, director of news and public affairs on KJLH-FM (102.3) in Inglewood.

“An uncle [of Johnson’s] called me,” Stephens said, “and asked if he could go on the show. He said he wants the world to know about Shoshana, the person. I thought this was an opportunity for people to get to know who the young lady is.”

During the program, which aired April 5, a week before Johnson’s release, some callers complained about the shortage of information on her. A few commented that the only black female prisoner had not been found, while a white female prisoner of war, Lynch, had been rescued.

A couple of listeners asked what they could do. One caller suggested yellow ribbons.

JoAnn Johnson, no relation to the soldier, didn’t hear about the ribbons on the show. But she did hear the correct spelling of the soldier’s name.

“When I saw her on television when she was first captured, she looked so scared,” said Johnson, 48, a sales manager for a medical laboratory. “It was the look on her face. She’s like the girl next door. I had dreams about her. I would wake up and tell my husband. It was almost like I was her to a certain extent. I kept thinking about what is she thinking, what is she feeling.”

Johnson needed to do something. She bought yellow plastic tablecloths (because the material holds up in the rain) and small American flags, and paid a printer to make three signs. She and her daughter Destiny, 12, went to work on the median of their block on Degnan Boulevard.

“When we were out there doing it, we were getting honks and people were screaming out of their [car] windows, ‘Bring Shoshana Home!’ ”

On Sunday, she changed the signs to “Shoshana Is Home.”

The word “Bring” was crossed out on a similar sign on the pulpit at the First United Christian Church. As Pastor Maurice D. Johnson prayed, tears slid down the face of a woman in the front row, her arms held high, outstretched in praise. The minister, also no relation, acknowledged “Sister Rafaela, Shoshana’s auntie.”

Rafaela DeSuze, 64, actually a second cousin of Johnson, is part of her large and close Panamanian family, scattered in Texas, New Jersey, Florida, Los Angeles and Lancaster. She looped ribbons around several trees on her street, Manhattan Place, and around the corner on those in front of the church.

“She’s free. The seven POWs have been released,” the pastor said as the congregation erupted. “They are in the custody of the United States. None of them are dead. They are alive and well. God bless America. My country ‘tis of thee.” He waved a flag DeSuze had given him before the service began.

DeSuze learned of Johnson’s release shortly after sunrise when prayer partner Mark Bullard knocked on her door. She immediately called another cousin, the soldier’s aunt, JoAnn Amatine, in Lancaster.

Amatine learned before dawn, when her husband heard about the release of a female African American soldier on CNN. “We’re on our way out there tomorrow, to Texas,” Amatine said, as she started sobbing. “She’s free.”