James D. Johnson
| James Douglas Johnson | |
|---|---|
| Associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court | |
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In office 1959–1966 |
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| Member of the Arkansas Senate | |
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In office 1951–1957 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 20, 1924 Crossett, Ashley County Arkansas |
| Died | February 13, 2010 (aged 85) Conway, Faulkner County Arkansas |
| Political party | Democrat 1950–1980; Independent 1980–1983; Republican 1983–2010 |
| Spouse(s) | Virginia Lillian Morris Johnson (married 1947–2007, her death) |
| Children | Mark Johnson John David Johnson Joseph Daniel Johnson |
| Occupation | Attorney |
James Douglas Johnson (August 20, 1924 – February 13, 2010), known as Justice Jim Johnson, was a former associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, a two-time candidate for Governor of Arkansas in 1956 and 1966, and an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1968. A segregationist, Johnson is frequently compared to George Wallace of Alabama.
Johnson was a native of Crossett, in southern Arkansas, near the Louisiana line. Johnson was said to have admired the political style of Huey Pierce Long, Jr., but was to Long's political right. In 1950. Johnson was elected to the Arkansas State Senate and served until January 1957. In 1956, he did not run again for the legislature because he challenged Governor Orval Faubus in the Democratic Party primary. Johnson accused the segregationist Faubus of working behind the scenes for racial integration. Johnson finished second in the pivotal Democratic primary with 83,856 votes (26.9 percent). Faubus then defeated the Republican Roy Mitchell to win a second consecutive two-year term as governor.
Being a staunch and lifelong segregationist, Johnson also played a role in the Little Rock Nine crisis. He claimed to have hoaxed Governor Faubus into calling out the National Guard, supposedly to prevent a white mob from stopping the integration of Little Rock Central High School: "There wasn't any caravan. But we made Orval believe it. We said. 'They're lining up. They're coming in droves.' ... The only weapon we had was to leave the impression that the sky was going to fall." He later claimed that Faubus asked him to raise a mob to justify his actions. He was elected to the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1958 and served until 1966, when he resigned to run again for governor. During his legal career, his wife, Virginia Lillian Morris Johnson, a Conway native whom he married in 1947, served as his legal secretary.
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