Civil rights lawyer John Doar, 92, dies

When President Barack Obama announced 13 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, many were household names, such as astronaut John Glenn, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and author Toni Morrison.

But there was one name that many didn't know, and that was civil rights attorney John Doar, who died Tuesday at his home in New York. The cause was congestive heart failure, said his son, Burke Doar.

Doar, 92, who grew up in Wisconsin, never sang his own praises, never sought to win accolades. Instead, the one-time assistant attorney general humbly did his job, playing no less of a role in history than those much better known.

Doar was a Justice Department civil rights lawyer from 1960 to 1967, serving in the final months of the Eisenhower administration and then staying on during the presidencies of President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He rose to the position of assistant attorney general, or top lawyer, in charge of the department's Civil Rights Division and challenged discriminatory policies in Southern states that curtailed minority access to the voting booth and state universities.

A self-described "Lincoln Republican" who worked for the federal government at the height of the civil rights movement, he played important roles in some of the pivotal moments of that cause.

In 1962, for instance, Doar escorted James Meredith onto the campus of the University of Mississippi, even as then-Gov. Ross Barnett and angry crowds sought to keep the school segregated. He helped Meredith settle into his dormitory on a campus roiled by violent riots that left two dead.

He later was the lead prosecutor in the federal trial arising from the deaths of three civil rights workers — Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner — who were killed in 1964 while in Mississippi to help blacks register to vote. A federal jury returned guilty verdicts against some defendants, including a deputy county sheriff, but acquitted others. Those killings inspired the 1988 film "Mississippi Burning."

"It was a historic moment," said Minor, who covered the trial for New Orleans Times-Picayune.

When I contacted Minor about Doar receiving the Medal of Freedom, the veteran Mississippi journalist said, "He deserves that and more. This is a remarkable man who has done remarkable things."

After Medgar Evers' funeral in 1963, following his assassination at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, Doar stepped into the breach between hundreds of angry demonstrators and hundreds of trigger-happy law enforcement officials.

If not for Doar's intervention, "there would have been mass murder on Farish Street that day," Minor said.

In awarding him in 2012, Obama credited Doar with laying the groundwork for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In a statement Tuesday, Obama called Doar "one of the bravest American lawyers of his or any era."

"Time and time again, John put his life on the line to make real our country's promise of equal rights for all," Obama said.

Contributing: Associated Press