Bertha LaBranche Johnson

Bertha LaBranche was born in Wesson, Mississippi, the daughter of Jule LaBranche and Onie Smith LaBranche. She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta. ==Career==

With her husband Jonas Edward Johnson, she co-founded the Prentiss Normal and Industrial Institute in Mississippi, a rural school they opened in 1906. The school succeeded, and expanded to include secondary classes and a junior college by 1953. In 1955, the campus became home to the first Heifer International program in the United States, when a campus dairy was built by the charity. She was president of the school from 1954 Johnson and her husband also founded Oak Park Vocational School in 1927, in Laurel, Mississippi. This school focused on agricultural training courses. She was also active in the National Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, serving as its statistician for five years. She wrote a book about the work of Black clubwomen in Mississippi, Lifting as We Climb (1940). She was named Outstanding Woman of the Year by the National Association of Colored Women in 1951. ==Publications==

• Lifting as We Climb (1940) ==Personal life and legacy==

LaBranche married Jonas Edward Johnson in 1904. They had three children. Her husband died in 1953, and she died in 1971, in her late eighties. The Prentiss school continued in operation until 1989. The main building, funded with a Rosenwald grant, was restored and reopened in 2013 as a community and event space. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ==References==