He was a card-carrying Republican nominated by a Democratic president to be head of the FBI.
Could that happen in today’s tumultuous political environment? Most would say definitely not, although there was a considerable twist to this story. But there were many twists to Frank Johnson’s life story.
Frank Minis Johnson Jr. may well have been a Republican, but he emanated from the GOP’s moderate to liberal wing, and that gave President Jimmy Carter the pass he needed in 1977 to nominate Johnson to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He had been appointed to the federal bench by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower after supporting Ike at the 1948 GOP convention.
His nomination to run the FBI fell through when Johnson, who by then had served 22 years as a federal judge in Alabama, became ill and felt he could not recover quickly enough to accept the post. He then served another 22 years as a federal judge, handing down some of the most meaningful civil rights rulings of the era.
His tale reminds us that the political party label didn’t and mustn’t always rule every single decision made in this country, as things seem today.
The memory of Frank Johnson doesn’t need much prodding to come alive in our family (more in a moment), and we do not want his life and times to fade in other minds, either.
A reminiscence of Judge Johnson appeared recently on a replica of old newspaper front pages when the country paid homage to another famous Southerner, Mississippi’s own Elvis Presley, on the 48th anniversary of his death (Aug. 16, 1977). Amid those page-one stories was a headline that read: “Alabama’s Judge Johnson Chosen As New FBI Chief.”
Johnson’s Republican leanings came from being raised in Winston County, a GOP stronghold in northwest Alabama. The county strongly supported the Union Army during the Civil War. Johnson was a twice-wounded Army infantry officer at Normandy in World War II, and was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery in combat.
Eisenhower in 1955 placed Johnson in a federal judgeship based in the Alabama capital city of Montgomery. There, he fought his old law school classmate, Democratic Gov. George Wallace, on a range of desegregation and other civil rights issues.
In 1963, Johnson ordered the University of Alabama to admit two Black students. Wallace stood in the doorway of the school’s administration offices to block them.
The drama ended when President John F. Kennedy ordered the Alabama National Guard to clear the way for the students’ admission.
I was privileged to meet Frank Johnson in 1979 when he and his wife Ruth hosted a wedding rehearsal dinner in Montgomery for my sister Nancy and her husband, Carl Lazenby. Carl was Johnson’s first cousin.
Due to his unpopularity among many Alabama whites of the Klan era, the Johnson home was always heavily guarded, mainly by two Doberman pinschers roaming his yard.
