As we celebrate the one year mark of our nation’s historic election of its first African-American president, we are reminded of the radical departure from “politics as usual” that President Barack Obama took.

Long gone are the elite contributor groups, such as George W. Bush’s $100,000 Pioneers (those who contributed $100,000, and then were given access to the President).

Instead, a new era of inclusion was ushered in: the “everyman/everywoman” era. It is an era of smaller donors – though no less passionate about their candidates and issues – who give $25 and $50, who volunteer a few hours a week, or month. Even the Internet took center stage during the presidential campaign in creating a common-folk force of the people, by the people, and for the people. And do not mistake the access that these individuals have to the President. Perhaps they aren’t sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom, or pressing palms at White House State Dinners, but these “everyman/everywomen” have as much access to the dream that our President – and the new era – represents.

This year, in celebration of this new era, we honor San Diego’s own “everywoman,” Gloria Johnson, as our 2009 Person of the Year.

It’s a name you may or may not be familiar with. Most likely, not.

However, as you learn about Johnson’s four decades of activism, you will undoubtedly agree that this “everywoman” has touched each and every one of our lives, and is truly worthy of this honor.

Asked to describe herself, Gloria Johnson replies simply “I’m a feminist and lesbian.” But Gloria Johnson is much more than that.

Johnson is a woman with a mission and not afraid to get in people’s faces to make her point known.

As a political activist and retired social worker, Johnson has labored for four decades on local, state, and national levels to improve the status of women and gays. Her courageous leadership and founder roles as an out lesbian include the National Organization for Women and numerous democratic, and lesbian and gay organizations. Johnson became involved in the civil rights and peace movements in the 1960s and then the women’s movement (1970s), particularly the drive to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Throughout these years, Johnson held leadership roles in organizations that served as major forces for change for women, gays and lesbians.

In 1976, she co-chaired the local “No on 6” campaign against the Briggs initiative, which would have kept gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools. As President of the San Diego County Chapter of NOW (1982-1983 and1985-1988), she represented San Diego County on the state board for several years. She was one of the founders of the chapter’s Lesbian Rights Task Force in the late ’70s and served as director of NOW’s national Lesbian Rights Conference in San Diego in 1988. Johnson served on the national board of directors for the National Stonewall Democratic Federation and was elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention for 1980, 1996, and 2000. More recently: she has served as Vice Chair of the Lesbian and Gay Caucus for the California Democratic Party, the Political Relations Director of the San Diego Democratic Club and Co-Director of Political Action for the San Diego County Democratic Party. She is currently the Action Vice President of CA NOW.

In 2003 she was inducted into the San Diego County Women’s Hall of Fame.

Johnson has also received the distinction of being appointed to the Governor’s Committee on Women’s Issues. Aside from her extensive leadership positions, Johnson has been a volunteer in a multitude of campaigns for local Democratic candidates. She’s served on the campaign staff for Chris Kehoe, Toni Atkins, Donna Frye and Hillary Clinton.

Throughout all these years of activism, Gloria was a social worker for the County of San Diego for 30 years. In the early decades of HIV/AIDS, she was an AIDS case worker, who fought on the frontlines for her clients to receive the dignity, respect and services they deserved.

Although she retired from that work in 2000, her political service continues to branch in new avenues.

Gloria was grassroots from the get go. She has continued that everywoman activism into the new millennium era of Facebook, which she proudly navigates to get the word out about the causes she believes in.

It is fitting that nearly 40 years later, as she has navigated through the trenches of politics, Johnson finds herself right back where she started: Reaching out one person at a time, having her say, and making sure every woman is represented.

Congratulations to our 2009 Person of the Year, our “everywoman,” Gloria Johnson. It is an honor well-deserved.