About the John Doar Papers

John Doar (1921-2014) was an attorney who prosecuted discrimination and segregation cases for the Justice Department during the civil rights movement.

In October, 1960, Doar joined the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the institution tasked with enforcing the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 (and later the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act).

Doar was sworn in as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights on April 22, 1965, making him head of the Civil Rights Division, a position he held until his resignation in December 1967. During his time at the Civil Rights Division, Doar was involved in a number of highly publicized cases and events of the civil rights movement, such as United States v. Price (commonly known as the "Mississippi Burning" trial) and the Selma-Montgomery march of 1965. Doar also escorted James Meredith onto the segregated University of Mississippi campus in 1962 to ensure that Meredith would be allowed to register, and later prosecuted Mississippi's governor, Ross Barnett, for denying Meredith's admission.

The John Doar Papers primarily document Doar's tenure with the Civil Rights Division in the form of court records, investigation files, correspondence, and notes, though materials from Doar's time on the Watergate impeachment inquiry committee and on the Board of Education are also present. To a lesser extent, the collection is composed of records from Doar's work for the Bedford-Stuyvesant Corporation and his private law practice.

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Credit this material

John Doar Papers; Public Policy Papers, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Location

Public Policy Papers

Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library

65 Olden Street Princeton, NJ 08540, USA