Robert Johnson beat the odds in foster care system

Robert Johnson’s story starts with blank pages. He knows nothing about himself from the time he was born until he was 3 years old. That’s when a woman adopted him and his older sister. But Johnson’s new mom began to abuse him soon after, he said. As a boy, Johnson figured that’s just how it was. It didn’t occur to him to tell any grown-ups. “I don’t remember being afraid to tell anybody,” he said. “I just remember being depressed and scared every time the bell rang to get on the bus to go home.” Teachers and administrators at Johnson’s elementary school finally figured out what was happening, he said, and county child welfare workers removed him and his sister from their adoptive mother’s home when he was 8.