I walk by the site of the future Ed Johnson memorial nearly every day. Several from our court have dedicated a good deal of time to this effort, in one way or another. The Johnson case, of course, is the subject of a great book, but this column from yesterday does a nice job of delivering the basics.
And while you’re at it, you can read the unsettling local coverage of the case from the Chattanooga Times in 1906.
The mood was a bit different nearly a century later during a hearing in Hamilton County Criminal Court at which Johnson was exonerated. I was lucky enough of have a seat in the gallery as a young lawyer. The New York Times wrote an article about it.
That NYT article recounts that the lawyer who co-authored Contempt of Court, the book about the Johnson case, said the following: “‘We have a lot of racial problems still left in this country,’ said Mr. Phillips, ‘and we have to look at those problems and look at our history, not through rose-colored glasses, but in a truthful manner. The truth in this case is brutal, sickening. It is terrible how we treated black people and we owe them an apology. But today we sent a message that we care, that we care about justice, that racism does not have a place in the judicial system.’”
The Johnson case can teach us many lessons, but one of the most important is how federal courts are often the last resort for anyone who has been denied justice, for whatever reason. No one knows that better than our pro se law clerks, but we all play a part in fulfilling the promise that the Johnson case sparked.
Chief Judge Travis R. McDonough
United States District Court
Eastern District of Tennessee