Defending Constitutional Rights (Studies in the Legal History of the South) - Hardcover

Frank M. Johnson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0820322857 ISBN 13: 9780820322858

Publisher: University of Georgia Press, 2001

Synopsis

Federal Judge Frank M. Johnson of Alabama decided many of the most important civil rights and liberties cases in twentieth-century American history. During the 1950s and 1960s, his decisions supported Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights fighters in their struggles for justice and equality. Johnson extended the Constitutional defense of individual rights for women, students, prisoners, mental health patients, poor criminal defendants, and voters during his active judicial career in Alabama and the South, which lasted until 1991. This collection assembles some of Johnson's most thought-provoking and insightful essays, many of which explain and defend a number of his decisions. Also included in this volume is the first published transcript of a 1980 public television interview with Bill Moyers. Meticulously detailed and documented, yet accessible to a wide range of readers, this book explores the constitutional ideals that Johnson forged and defended as he persistently overcame public officials' resistance to constitutional rights and social change.

About this title

About the Author

TONY A. FREYER was the University Research Professor of History and Law at the University of Alabama. He is the author of six books, including Hugo L. Black and the Dilemma of American Liberalism; The Response to Big Business: Antitrust in Great Britain and America, 1880-1990; and Producers Versus Capitalists: Constitutional Conflict in Antebellum America; and coauthor of Democracy and Judicial Independence: Federal Courts in Alabama, 1890-1994.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0820322857
• ISBN 13: 9780820322858
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 191