This Black History Month, Women for a Healthy Environment honors Johnie Frank Perryman, a Clairton community leader who helped strengthen the clean-air movement in the Mon Valley. Johnie passed away on March 14, 2025, at age 81.
Clairton has faced longstanding air-quality burdens linked to emissions from U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works. After the Christmas Eve 2018 fire, the public learned just how fragile pollution controls can be when essential equipment fails. A federal case later alleged thousands of violations tied to that fire, including 102 consecutive days of illegal emissions of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide.
Johnie’s advocacy grew from lived experience. In testimony connected to litigation over the 2018 fire, he described feeling weak and short of breath not long after moving to Clairton from Seattle, and he spoke about how conditions worsened after the fire. He also described steps he took inside his home to cope, including relying on masks and air purifiers.
His voice mattered in the legal fight for accountability. Local reporting on the Clean Air Act case notes that Johnie was deposed by U.S. Steel’s lawyers in a citizens’ lawsuit over air pollution from the Clairton Coke Works, and he spoke openly about the toll that process took on him.
Johnie carried this work beyond the courtroom. As a leading figure with Valley Clean Air Now, he gave time, energy, and steady leadership to neighbors who needed relief and to a community that deserved better. He helped spur efforts that brought more than $50,000 worth of air purifiers to Clairton residents, meeting families where they were and refusing to accept polluted air as the price of living in the Mon Valley.
Clairton and Pittsburgh lost a hero. Johnie Perryman’s legacy sits in a longer story of Black community leadership—neighbors protecting neighbors and refusing to be dismissed. His life calls us to keep pressing for clean air and accountability for the people who live closest to pollution.
To support the work Johnie helped lead, contact Valley Clean Air Now at info@valleycleanair.com.
