(1957 – 2025)

Mike Johnson was a husband, a father, a church elder, an invigilator at a local college, the founder of Life Radio UK and my friend.

I was introduced to him early in 2022 by a friend.

We immediately hit it off and realised that there was a big overlap between the vision of Life Radio and the vision of Reach Society.

So it should be no surprise that in the short time I knew him, just three and a half years, we worked on several projects.

He was captivated by an article I wrote entitled Our Milestones about the UK Black community. This led to our first radio project entitled Milestones.

Its popularity led to our second project entitled Milestones Series 2 about UK contributors from the Black community.

The 75th year of our UK community in 2023 was the basis for our next project.

We created a song the Windrush Nation Anthem to mark this milestone. We held a church service in Brixton in which this Anthem was sung.

Mike was inspired by the Society’s project to celebrate Windrush Day via the annual Gathering. He suggested that we undertook the job of recognising our unsung heroes.

That was the basis for the Windrush Nation Awards that was piloted in October 2023; and then rolled out in the June Gathering from 2024.

Mike quickly grasped the idea of the Society celebrating its 15th year of operation. And the RS15 Voices project was born.

Mike was actively preparing for this year’s Windrush Nation Awards and was looking forward to it. Sadly he was taken roughly 4 weeks before.

Mike was kind and positive, a man of faith and action. He was my friend and I will miss him.

Dr Dwain Neil OBE
Reach Society, Chairman (June’25)