Sandra Booth Johnson, Newport News' "Rosa Parks", died on Tuesday evening, July 28, 2026, after a brief illness, at the age of 81.

At her core, Sandra was an educator, not only in classrooms over 17 years, but also settings such as museums, like The Newsome House Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, Carter's Grove, Lee Hall Mansion, Endview Plantation and Ft. Monroe, teaching through the African tradition of storytelling, through the practice of first-person interpretive presentations, about Black and enslaved personalities. The most famous being, Rosa Parks.

Sandra was born on September 25, 1944, at Mary Immaculate Hospital, spending her first few years with her maternal grandparents, between the 600 block of 35th Street and the corner of 18th Street and Madison Avenue, when she attended Dunbar Elementary School. In 1953, with her grandfathers building of a house at 1027 - 29th Street, she transferred to Booker T. Elementary. Her education, naturally, continued on, with her attending the infamous, Huntington High School, just like her mother, before her, graduating in that notorious Class of 1962. Her education continued at then, The Norfolk Division of Virginia State College, where she majored in Health and Physical Education. She managed to continue her own education, while educating young minds in the classroom, obtaining s Masters of Education Administration and hours toward a Ph.D, at Virginia State - Petersburg. It was as after this 17 years of being in the classroom, that Sandra switched gears, not only in setting, but subject matter and method, when she joined the Colonial Williamsburg African American Historical Interpretive Program, performing, in first person characterizations, the lives of freed and enslaved Blacks during Colonial times. After a 10 year run at Colonial Williamsburg properties, Sandra was recruited to Newport News News' Newsome House Museum, where she continued her first person characterizations, expanding the list to include Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, as well as, more locally associated, Mary Peake, and then, her widely known interpretation of Rosa Parks, old CRT bus, included.

Sandra is preceded in death, by her maternal grandparents, Thomas Nathaniel and Beatrice Hamlin Diggs, her father, Arthur Pernell Booth, her step father, John Owen ("Peter") Wood and mother, Celestine Viola Diggs Booth Wood.

Arrangements have been entrusted to O. H. Smith and Son Funeral Home, Newport News. Visitation has been scheduled for Wednesday, August 5th, from 3 to 6PM, with the memorial service to be conducted on Thursday, August 6th, at 11AM.

In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting consideration of a donation, in Sandra's memory, to the Huntington High School Alumni Association, Scholarship Fund.