Desire to Serve

Desire to Serve is the autobiography of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (1934-2023), a thirty-year member of the United States House of Representatives, in her words as told to Cheryl Brown Wattley. It chronicles Johnson growing up in segregated Waco, Texas; attending St. Mary’s nursing school in South Bend, Indiana; working at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Dallas, Texas, as a chief psychiatric nurse; serving in the Texas House; being appointed as the regional director for Health,