WASHINGTON — John Doar, who as a top Justice Department civil rights lawyer in the 1960s fought to protect the rights of black voters and worked against segregation in the South, died Tuesday at age 92.
Doar was a Justice Department civil rights lawyer from 1960 to 1967
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, 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 later was lead prosecutor in the federal trial arising from the deaths of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner who were killed in 1964 while in Mississippi to help blacks register to vote. Those killings inspired the 1988 film “Mississippi Burning.”
The jury returned guilty verdicts against some defendants, including a deputy county sheriff.
