Sheila Johnson

Sheila Crump Johnson is the team president, managing partner and governor of the WNBA's Washington Mystics, a position she gained before the 2005 season. On May 24 of that year, Washington Sports and Entertainment Chairman Abe Pollin sold the Mystics to Lincoln Holdings LLC, and Johnson was named president. She is the first African-American woman to be an owner or partner in three professional sports franchises, also having a piece of the Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards. After her divorce from her first husband in 2003, Robert L. Johnson, she was left with a sum estimated at about $670M after taxes, which several published sources report she has successfully parlayed into a portfolio in excess of one billion dollars. According to BET.com's (her ex-husband, Robert Johnson's former empire) website in 2008, Sheila Johnson, is the world’s first Black American billionaire. She also became the first Black woman to own three professional sports franchises – the Washington Capitals hockey team, Washington Wizards basketball team, and Washington Mystics women’s professional basketball team – in 2002. She is also a member of Sigma Alpha Iota, a womens' music fraternity. She was in a unique situation in sports, in that her ex-husband owned a rival team in the same WNBA division, the Charlotte Sting. She and her former husband made their fortunes by founding the entertainment network BET, and then selling it to Viacom in 1997. They have two children: a daughter, Paige, who is an accomplished equestrian, and a son, Brett.

Johnson is currently President and CEO of Salamander Hospitality and a partner in Lincoln Holdings, LLC. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia, Chair of the Board of Governors at Parsons The New School for Design,a violinist, philanthropist and community leader. [http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=156902071] .

Remarriage

On September 24, 2005, she married Arlington County Circuit Court Chief Judge William T. Newman which was reported the next day in long, detailed article in the Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/24/AR2005092401710.html] and in the December 2005 issue of Ebony Magazine [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_2_61/ai_n15893495] .

In the same Washington Post article, it was reported that "in 1987, Newman became the first African American elected to the Arlington County Board since Reconstruction, a position he resigned in 1993 to accept the appointment of a judgeship that led, last year, to his becoming chief judge of the Court."

upport of Obama

While her ex-husband Robert L. Johnson has garnered controversy in his support of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, Sheila Johnson has publicly supported Senator Barack Obama. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17819333/ "Associated Press", March 27, 2007] ]

External resources

[http://www.wnba.com/mystics/news/mystics_sold_052405.html Johnson becomes team president] [http://www.bet.com/News/Features/WHM08_AfricanAmericanWomenFirstsFlipbook.htm?i=8 African American Women of Firsts]

References