February 13, 2010

After a battle with cancer, James Douglas “Justice Jim” Johnson, a former associate justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court, took his own life at his home at Beaverfork Lake near Conway (Faulkner County). As a state senator, Johnson made segregation his main political issue after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board. After unsuccessfully running against Governor Orval Fabus, Johnson continued to work behind the scenes, getting Amendment 47, which asserted that the state could ignore federal law, added to the Arkansas constitution. The amendment was later declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.