First Black woman to serve as US Capitol Police officer is a Rocky Mount native

The first woman and the first Black woman to serve as a US Capitol Police officer was Arva Johnson, a Rocky Mount native who broke the department’s gender barrier in the 1970s.

Johnson says she became a trailblazer by accident, chalking up her ability to overcome the difficulties she faced to her early years in eastern North Carolina.

Johnson told WRAL News she remembers the Rocky Mount of the 1950s and 60s.

Growing up in a house on South Church Street, the quiet and reserved community became the lens she saw the world through.

“It was a little small city,” Johnson said. “Everywhere we had to go, we had to walk, like to school, to the grocery store, everything was kind of close in.”

After graduating from then-Booker T. Washington High School in 1971, Johnson made her way up I-95 to the big city: Washington DC.

Following three years of searching for a career, Johnson’s cousin called one day with the news that would change her life: the US Capitol police force was hiring for officers.

“Growing up in North Carolina, I always wanted to be in uniform,” Johnson said. “So they called, and they hired me to come to work October 15, 1974. I was 24 years old.”

Johnson became the first woman and the first Black woman to serve as a US Capitol Police officer.

Not everyone was eager to see her join the force.

“When I first started working there, the officers really didn’t want a female to start with,” Johnson said. “Because you know how guys like to do their own talking and mingling.”

Johnson told WRAL News instead of pushing back, she worked to show the other officers they could be themselves around her.

Within months, she became one of them.

Johnson would stay that way, protecting the US Capitol dome for the next 32 years.

“I got to meet the senators, the congressmen, some of the presidents were up there,” Johnson said. “It was a lot.”

When she finally decided to retire in 2006, the capitol police sent her off with a surprise, dedicating a classroom at their training facility in Johnson’s honor.

“My chief and deputy chief, they said we want everyone to know who you are and you set the trail for them,” Johnson said.

In the years since hanging up her uniform, nothing has affected Johnson like the events of last January 6.

“I cried, because I knew I had spent 32 years there, with the best of the best,” Johnson said. “And we always looked out for each other, and we protected each other, and that’s why it hurt.”

But what stays with Johnson are the images of the officers wearing the uniform today: men and women of all different races – the latest chapter of a legacy she launched more than 40 years ago.

“So now at the age of 72, everybody says, ‘You’re history now!’” Johnson said. “And they want to know, did you realize?”

“Not at all, even I’m humbled with this,” she went on. “But like I said, it’s all from North Carolina. Rocky Mount, North Carolina.”