Kennedy and Johnson Administrations
Clark served in the Department of Justice as the Assistant Attorney General of the Lands Division from 1961 to 1965, and as Deputy Attorney General from 1965 to 1967.
In 1967, President Johnson nominated him to be Attorney General of the United States. He was confirmed by the Senate and took the oath of office on March 2. There is speculation by Clark's detractors that Johnson made the appointment on the expectation that Clark's father, Associate Justice Tom C. Clark, would resign from the Supreme Court to avoid a conflict of interest. Johnson wanted a vacancy to be created on the Court so he could appoint Thurgood Marshall, the first African American justice. The elder Clark resigned from the Supreme Court on June 12, 1967, creating the vacancy Johnson apparently desired.
Clark served as Attorney General until Johnson's term as President ended on January 20, 1969.
Clark played an important role in the history of the American Civil Rights movement. During his years at the Justice Department, he
- supervised the federal presence at Ole Miss during the week following the admission of James Meredith;
- surveyed all school districts in the South desegregating under court order (1963);
- supervised federal enforcement of the court order protecting the march from Selma to Montgomery; and
- headed the Presidential task force to Watts following the riots.
- supervised the drafting and executive role in passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Civil Rights Act of 1968.
As Attorney General during part of the Vietnam War, Clark oversaw the prosecution of the Boston Five for “conspiracy to aid and abet draft resistance.” Four of the five were convicted, including pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock and Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr.
In addition to his government work, during this period Clark was also director of the American Judicature Society (in 1963) and national president of the Federal Bar Association in 1964–65.
Read more about this topic: Ramsey Clark
Famous quotes containing the words kennedy and/or johnson:
“The moment when she crawled out onto the back of the open limousine in which her husband had been murdered was the first and last time the American people would see Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis crawl.... She was the last great private public figure in this country. In a time of gilt and glitz and perpetual revelation, she was perpetually associated with that thing so difficult to describe yet so simple to recognize, the apotheosis of dignity.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“What we believe is more important than our material existence, therefore warfare is a legitimate extension of values.”
—Edward Johnson (b. 1915)