In the same year, Albert Boutwell, a civil rights moderate, defeated Bull Connor, a segregationist, to become mayor of the city.
Boutwell assured civil right movement leaders that he was actively pursuing the hiring of black officers.
Despite numerous black candidates being put forward and passing the exam in the years immediately after 1963, none were hired due to their being perceived to be associated with the civil rights movement, either as having been members of it or having been sponsored by it.
The election in 1979 of Richard Arrington, the first black mayor of Birmingham, began an acceleration in racial integration of the force.
Johnson was promoted together with Leroy Stover and John Fisher, the only other black sergeants on the force, to the rank of Lieutenant in 1981.