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Frank Minis Johnson, Jr. (October 30, 1918July 23, 1999) was a United States Federal judge, serving 1955 to 1999 at the District and Appeals Court levels. He made landmark civil rights rulings that helped end segregation and disenfranchisement of African Americans in the South. In the words of journalist and historian Bill Moyers, Judge Johnson "altered forever the face of the South." ==Biography== Frank Minis Johnson, Jr. was born in 1918 and grew up in Haleyville in northern Alabama, long an independent-minded part of the state. Winston County had opposed secession from the Union during the American Civil War. Johnson graduated from the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama School of Law and passed the bar. He married Ruth Jenkins, a classmate from the University of Alabama. (Another classmate was George C. Wallace, future governor of the state, who became Johnson's ''bête noire'' during the civil rights era of the 1960s.) Johnson served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II, while his wife Ruth served in the WAVES as an adviser to Hollywood directors making films about the war. After military service, Johnson entered private law practice in Jasper, Alabama from 1946 to 1953. Unlike most white voters of the time in Alabama, he became active in politics with the Republican Party, serving as a delegate to the 1948 Republican National Convention. He managed Alabama’s “Veterans for Eisenhower” group during the 1952 campaign. Johnson was known as a foe of the southern Democratic Party's segregationist policies. He was appointed as a U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, 1953–55, during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. President Eisenhower next nominated Johnson to the federal bench as a district judge, and he was approved by the Senate in 1955, embarking on a more than 40-year judicial career. In 1956, Judge Johnson ruled in favor of Rosa Parks, striking down the “blacks in the back of the bus” law of the city of Montgomery, Alabama, as unconstitutional. In orders issued in 1961 and 1962, he ordered the desegregation of bus depots and Dannelly Airport facilities, respectively, in Montgomery. In March 1965, Judge Johnson ruled that activists had the right to undertake the Selma to Montgomery March as a means to petition the government, overturning Governor George Wallace's prohibition of the march as contrary to public safety. Thousands of sympathizers traveled to Selma to join the march, which had 25,000 participants by its last leg into Montgomery on March 25, 1965. It was considered integral to gaining passage by Congress of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Judge Johnson received death threats and ostracism for his role in advancing civil rights, and was protected by federal marshals for nearly two decades. A burning cross was placed on his lawn in 1956 following the Rosa Parks decision, and his mother's house was bombed in 1967, although she was not hurt. 〔http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1253〕〔http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1967/04/26/page/1/article/bomb-home-of-judges-kin〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Frank Minis Johnson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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