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The Judge NewSouth Books The Civil Rights Movement that erupted in the South during the 1950s and 1960s was the most important domestic event in America since the Civil War. While much of that history was recorded in the streets of Birmingham, Atlanta, Selma, and Montgomery, an equally dramatic and more far-reaching set of events unfolded in federal courtrooms in some of these same Southern cities. The changes sought by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others came largely in legal opinions issued by federal judges. Foremost of these judges was Frank Minis Johnson, Jr., of Montgomery, Alabama, who presided over some of the most emotional hearings and trials of the civil rights era—hearings brimming with dramatic and poignant testimony from the black people who cried out for the freedoms that are the legacy of all Americans. This book covers many of Johnson’s most notable cases: the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Freedom Rides, school de-segregation, the Selma-to-Montgomery march, and the Ku Klux Klan conspiracy case in the night-rider slaying of Viola Liuzzo. The interviews that form the basis of this book began in August 1976 and ended in January 1989. The judge would sit at his desk and lean back in the swivel chair, awaiting the first question. When it was asked, he would pause, open the desk drawer, take out a pack of Levi Garrett chewing tobacco, study for a moment, take the chaw, then slowly drawl, “Well . . .” Sometimes as he pondered a question, he would stand, walk to the window, and gaze out. Much of the book is almost autobiographical, composed of direct quotes from Johnson.
Reviews “The Judge: The Life & Opinions of Alabama's Frank M. Johnson, Jr. is the biography of a federal judge who presided over some of the most tense and emotional hearings and trials of the civil rights era. From the Montgomery Bus Boycott, to the Freedom Rides, school desegregation, the Selma-to-Montgomery march, and the Ku Klux Klan conspiracy case in the night-rider slaying of Viola Liuzzo, The Judge gives an inside look that blends court transcripts, reporting, and exhaustive oral history interviews with Judge Johnson, originally conducted over the course of years from 1976 to 1989. ‘In Montgomery, the boycott did not bring an end to segregation on the buses. The court order Judge Rives and I entered did. If we hadn't ruled as we did, I'm certain blacks would still be boycotting and walking. The white power structure would never have yielded. The same thing could be said of voting rights; the Selma marches didn't bring them, court orders and the U.S. Congress did. As to my role, I would say the decisions stand and speak for themselves.’ A no-nonsense look behind the scenes of the courtroom, and a welcome contribution to biography as well as American History shelves.” “The civil warfare that raged during the social upheaval of the fifties and sixties sucked into its vortex an iron-willed federal judge whose name and temperament became synonymous with courage and justice. As a senior judge on the Eleventh Circuit and as a federal district judge for twenty-four years, [Johnson] was central to practically every major civil rights case of that era, cases that redefined social and political guarantees for both the south and the nation. Through it all he remained above the pressure of partisan politics and the prejudice of the day.” “[Judge Johnson’s] first ten years in the Montgomery courtroom coincided with the most tumultuous period of Southern history since the Civil War. Drawing extensively from interviews with the judge and from court transcripts, author Sikora recounts and dramatizes the cases that challenged and finally overturned the segregation laws. Sikora, an Alabama journalist since the mid-1960s, interviewed Johnson on numerous occasions over a thirteen-year period. Roughly one-third of The Judge is in Johnson’s own words.” “Frank Johnson is more than a distinguished, effective and scholarly judge. He is a living monument to the strength and vitality of the Constitution of the United States. He has been an inspiration to all who revere justice. Those of us in this region who have lived through the most difficult era in one hundred years have looked to Frank Johnson as a beacon of hope and of promise. His impact on this region and his value to the Republic are beyond measure.”
Links Listen to Frank Sikora’s interview on Tapestry at http://www.wbhm.org/Tapestry/Aug09-07.html#Johnson. |
