Former educator and Los Angeles Meals on Wheels administrator Harriett Mack passed away on October 25th. A quiet and consistent pillar of the community, Harriett was a life member of Holman United Methodist Church and served with distinction as First Lady of the Los Angeles Urban League for 37 years.
Harriett Hicks Johnson Mack was born on March 15, 1937 in Atlanta, Georgia to Carrie and Arthur Lee Hicks. Following their mother’s death, Harriett and her twin brother Henry were adopted by educator Hattie Mae Dye Johnson and her husband Kernel Mitchell Johnson, a dentist, and moved to Elberton, Georgia.
Harriett attended Spelman College in Atlanta and subsequently graduated from Bennett College in Columbia, South Carolina. She returned to Georgia to begin her teaching career in Monroe and married John W. Mack in 1959 in Elberton at her childhood home. The young couple moved to Flint, Michigan where Harriett worked as an early education instructor and John served as Executive Director of the Flint Urban League Affiliate. Their involvement with the Urban League eventually brought them to Los Angeles in 1969, where John headed the Los Angeles Urban League and Harriett worked for Meals on Wheels, California Employment Development Department and the Los Angeles Visitors & Convention Bureau.
In addition to her husband John W. Mack, Harriett is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Anthony and Teresa Mack, daughters Deborah Mack and Andria Mack, grandchildren Anthony II, Gabriel and Gianna Mack, siblings Henry Johnson, Arthur Hicks, Emily Hicks, Marie Tanner and Ella Dansby; sister-in-law Ruth Gray as well as by nieces, nephews and cousins of the Dye, Hicks and Gay families and a host of extended family and friends.
There will be a private funeral ceremony for the family with a memorial service to be set at a later date.
