Jan Peterson & Mildred Tudy Johnston

Jan Peterson and Mildred Tudy Johnston. . , This building honors women activists Jan Peterson and Mildred Tudy Johnston for transforming Williamsburg-Greenpoint through their work as community leaders. In 1974, Jan Peterson founded the National Congress of Neighborhood Women (NCNW) to empower poor and working class women to become community leaders, to give them a voice, and to raise their consciousness of their own power. As a founding member of the Greenpoint Renaissance Enterprise Corporation (GREC) she had a key role in the transformation of the empty Greenpoint Hospital buildings into the NW Houses. Her experience spanned from local and national to global work, playing a founding role in GROOTS and the Huairou Commission. Jan committed more than four decades to the improvement of grassroots women's lives globally., Mildred Tudy Johnson moved into Cooper Park Houses in 1953 with her young children. She was a founding member of the Cooper Park Houses Tenant Association. In 1971, she was a principle founder of Crispus Attucks Community Council of Williamsburg where she served as Executive Director until the age of 73. She advocated racial equality, better jobs for teens, improved public housing, voter registration, the building of Woodhull hospital and holding elected officials accountable to the community. For more than five decades, Mildred dedicated her life to the welfare of this community.