Pamela Johnson-Betts was born in 1950, the only child of Leslie Gardenhire Johnson and Charles O. Johnson. She grew up in Topeka, Kansas, attending kindergarten at Washington Elementary School, one of the all-Black schools mentioned in the 1954 Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court case. She then attended Topeka Lutheran School for the rest of elementary and some of junior high before graduating 9th grade from East Topeka Junior High. After graduating from Topeka High School, Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree from Washburn University in Topeka. With a Master of Social Work from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Johnson-Betts is a licensed specialist clinical social worker and certified public manager.

Johnson-Betts began her career in 1974 as an equal employment opportunity (EEO) officer on the civilian side of the Fort Carson MEDDAC in Colorado Springs, CO. She moved back to Topeka in 1975 and was immediately hired as the first known African American school social worker in the Topeka Public School (TPS) District.

Johnson-Betts has held many positions at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) as a child care licensing specialist, directing all foster care home licensing in Kansas; Director of the Office of Government and Community Relations; and later as the Special Assistant to the Secretary of KDHE. At the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS), now known as the Department for Children and Families (DCF), she directed licensing for all juvenile group homes in the state. In 1996 she was appointed by Governor Bill Graves as a charter commissioner of the Kansas African American Affairs Commission and became the first African American female executive director of that commission in 2000.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius asked Johnson-Betts to join her cabinet in 2003 as the Secretary of the Kansas Department on Aging (KDOA), later renamed as the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS), one of a very few African Americans in the history of Kansas to serve in a governor’s cabinet. She is currently the executive director of the Topeka Public Schools Foundation (TPSF), where she has raised private funds to support the public schools since 2007. Most recently under her leadership, TPSF was bequeathed $5M dollars.

Johnson-Betts is a community activist. In October 2023, seeing no celebration being planned for Topeka, she developed a local community wide 60th Anniversary Commemorative March on Washington Program. She has been affiliated with many community organizations over the years, including Jack and Jill, the Topeka Chapter of Links, the Junior League of Topeka, Red Cross board of directors, ABWA, PARS, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, League of Women Voters, NAACP, and United Way. She was one of the founding members of the Brown Foundation, formed to preserve the history of the court case in Topeka, which also saved Monroe School. She has also served 21 years on the board of directors at Stormont Vail (Hospital).

Johnson-Betts has been honored and received many awards, including being honored with a “Women Who Changed the Heart of the City” Award (2023), participating in the Kansas Oral History Project - Diverse Voices in Public Policy (2022), and receiving the Greater Topeka Partnership - Woman of Influence Award (2017), the Sertoma Service to Mankind Award (2011), and the Topeka Public Schools Distinguished Staff Award (2010). In 2008 she was named a Washburn University Alumni Fellow, and in 2005 she received the ABWA Career Chapter Woman of Distinction Award.

Pamela Johnson-Betts was married for 42 years before divorcing in 2015. She has three sons: Chazwel, Brandt, and Blake Betts.

[Information gathered from collection materials and from the donor.]