Barefoot Sanders

Harold Barefoot Sanders Jr. (February 5, 1925 – September 21, 2008) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas and counsel to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

He was best known for overseeing the lawsuit to desegregate the Dallas Independent School District.

Sanders was born in Dallas, Texas to H.B. Sanders, and the former May Elizabeth Forrester.

"Barefoot" was the maiden name of his paternal grandmother, Dennie Barefoot.

Early in his life, Sanders went by "H.B."

He graduated from North Dallas High School in 1942.

He served in the United States Navy during World War II between 1943 and 1946.

While attending the University of Texas, Sanders was elected student body president in 1947.

He was affiliated with Phi Delta Theta, Blue Key, Phi Delta Phi, Phi Delta Kappa and the Texas Cowboys.

Sanders received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1949, and a Juris Doctor in 1950 from the University of Texas School of Law.

Sanders worked in private practice with the Dallas law firm of Clark, West, Keller, Sanders and Butler from 1950 through 1961 and from 1969 until 1979.

A Democrat, Sanders served in the Texas House of Representatives from 1953 to 1959.

During his tenure in the Texas Legislature, he sponsored the Texas Securities Act, the Texas Probate Code, the Texas Mental Health Code, and legislation creating the Trinity River Authority.

In 1958, Sanders ran for Texas's 5th congressional district, but lost in the general election to Republican incumbent Bruce Alger.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Sanders United States attorney for the Northern District of Texas, a position he held until 1965.

Until 1961, Dallas was the largest city in the South with a segregated school system.

That same year, the Dallas ISD school board implemented a desegregation plan – the so-called "Stairstep Plan" – under order of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In September of that year, eighteen black students started first grade classes in what had been whites-only institutions.

During his time as United States Attorney, Sanders played a minor role in the transition of power between Presidents Kennedy and Johnson following Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Sanders was, according to an interview, tasked with finding Federal District Judge Sarah T. Hughes to administer the oath of office to Johnson:

"LBJ called Irving Goldberg from the plane and asked, 'Who can swear me in?' Goldberg called me, and I said, 'Well, we know a federal judge can.' Then I got a call from the president's plane, with the command 'Find Sarah Hughes.' Coincidentally, Judge Hughes, Jan [Judge Sanders's wife] and I were supposed to go to Austin that night for a dinner for President Kennedy. I reached her at home and said, 'They need you to swear in the vice president at Love Field. Please get out there.' She said, 'Is there an oath?' I said, 'Yes, but we haven't found it yet.' She said, 'Don't worry about it; I'll make one up.' She was very resourceful, you know. By the time she got to the airplane, someone had already called it into the plane. We quickly realized that it is in the Constitution."

From 1965 to 1967, Sanders served as Assistant Deputy Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. and was instrumental in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed him Legislative Counsel to the President to manage the White House legislative program.

In spite of tremendous dissatisfaction with Dallas ISD and continual complaints by the Dallas NAACP, Dallas ISD declared itself desegregated in 1967.

In 1968, Johnson nominated Sanders to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Johnson's presidency ended before the United States Senate cast a vote on Sanders's nomination, and President Richard Nixon did not renominate Sanders.

Nixon appointed George MacKinnon to that seat instead.

Though Sanders handled thousands of civil and criminal cases during his tenure as a federal judge, he is best known in Texas for his role as judge in the Tasby v. Estes litigation brought against the Dallas Independent School District in the 1970s, in which plaintiff Sam Tasby charged that the Dallas ISD was still a segregated school district.

In 1972, Sanders ran for the United States Senate.

He narrowly defeated former U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough in the Democratic runoff, but lost the general election to incumbent Republican John Tower.

On February 6, 1979, President Jimmy Carter nominated Sanders to a new seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas created by 92 Stat.

1629. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on April 24, 1979, and received his commission two days later.

Sanders served as chief judge of the Northern District of Texas from 1989 to 1995.

During his tenure as a federal district judge, Sanders held many positions on committees related to the function of the judiciary.

He served as chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on the Judicial Branch (1994–97); as a member of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (1992–2000); and as chair, National Conference of Federal Trial Judges, American Bar Association (1988–89).

He assumed senior status on January 1, 1996.

The litigation began before Sanders became a federal judge, but he took over the case until its conclusion in 2003, and had oversight of many Dallas ISD activities related to racial balance until that time.

Though the Tasby litigation was not the first desegregation lawsuit against Dallas ISD, it is the most famous.

Sanders took inactive senior status on July 7, 2006.

His service was terminated on September 21, 2008, due to his death.