TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Nov 11, 2014

John Doar, a top Justice Department civil rights lawyer in the 1960s, died today at age 92, the Associated Press reports. Doar served in the final months of the Eisenhower administration and during the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, rising to the position of assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division. Later in his career, he served as special counsel to the House of Representatives as it investigated the Watergate scandal. Doar received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. In presenting the award, President Barack Obama said Doar “was the face of the Justice Department in the South” and helped lay the groundwork for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. WRCB-TV has the story.