John R. Brown

(1909-1993) born at Funk, Phelps County, lived in Holdrege and Lincoln. Federal judge, was one of four judges in the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who had major influence in desegregation of the South, issued nearly 2,000 opinions, including 1962 order that James Meredith be enrolled into then all-white University of Mississippi. Consult Holdrege Citizen, May 11, 1956, pp. 1, 7 and Jack Bass, Unlikely Heroes (Simon & Schuster, 1981) and Annual Obituary 1993 (St. James Press, 1994) 17-19 and Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Vol 3 (2001) 75-76.

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