Johnson v. State (1942)
Six months before the United States went to war with Japan and Germany in 1941, but as war hysteria was building, Joseph Paschall (Joe) Johnson, a farmer with eight children in the St. Joe (Searcy County) community, went to the county courthouse at Marshall (Searcy County) to get food relief for his family. He refused the county welfare commissioner’s demand that he salute the American flag in the commodities office because doing so would violate his Christian beliefs about swearing fealty only to God. He was denied commodities, arrested, and convicted of violating a 1919 state law prohibiting desecration of the flag. In the case of Johnson v. State of Arkansas (204 Ark. 476), the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld his …
