Alexis McGill Johnson on Leading Planned Parenthood Through Its Most Challenging Era

Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood, discusses her career and the organization's current challenges in an interview for CULTURED magazine's 2026 CULT100 honorees. A political scientist by training, she co-launched the "Vote or Die!" campaign with hip hop artists in 2004, which helped increase youth voter turnout, particularly among Black and Latino young people, and contributed to Barack Obama's Senate election. She credits mentors including Harry Belafonte, Clarence Avant, and political strategists known as the "Colored Girls" (Minyon Moore, Yolanda Caraway, Donna Brazile, Leah Daughtry). Johnson calls for more racial analysis in reproductive rights and less reliance on false equivalencies. She describes leading Planned Parenthood as the hardest part of her career, citing challenges including a leadership transition, racial reckoning, COVID-19, the loss of federal abortion protections after Dobbs, and a federal defund effort. She finds grounding in the stories of people helped by Planned Parenthood.