Gregory Lee Johnson

Gregory Lee "Joey" Johnson (born 1956) is an American political activist, known for his advocacy of flag desecration.

In 1969, he moved with his family to an American military base in West Germany, where he was influenced by growing opposition to the Vietnam War among Vietnam War draftees.

His family returned to the United States in 1971.

In 1973, he dropped out of high school and joined the United States Merchant Marine, which took him to Panama and Mexico, where he observed American sociopolitical and economic influence.

After moving to Tampa, Florida in 1976, he joined the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, the youth arm of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.

His burning of the flag of the United States in a political demonstration during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, led to his role as defendant in the landmark United States Supreme Court case Texas v. Johnson (1989).

Johnson was born in Richmond, Indiana.

His father spent several years of Gregory's childhood in prison.

His mother, Sally, was a supporter of the civil rights movement who married a staff sergeant in the United States Army.

Johnson grew up in a racially mixed, low-income neighborhood of Richmond.

At the time of his arrest for flag desecration in Dallas, Johnson was a resident of Atlanta, Georgia, and had traveled to Dallas to protest at the 1984 Republican National Convention.

On 22 August 1984, Johnson participated in a political demonstration called the "Republican War Chest Tour" in Dallas, Texas to protest the policies of several Dallas-area businesses and of the Ronald Reagan presidential administration.

The demonstration was timed to coincide with the 1984 Republican National Convention being held in downtown Dallas.

During the demonstration, approximately one hundred protesters marched in the streets, chanted slogans, and staged anti-nuclear weapons and anti-war die-ins at various corporate offices.

Some protesters vandalized businesses by spray-painting building walls and knocking over potted plants and ashtrays.

Johnson did not take part in the vandalism, but took an American flag that had been seized from a flagpole at one of the buildings by another protester.

At the culmination of the protest outside Dallas City Hall, Johnson poured kerosene on the flag and set it on fire.

While the flag burned, he chanted political slogans, including "Reagan, Mondale, which will it be? Either one means World War III;" "Ronald Reagan, killer of the hour, Perfect example of U.S. power;" and "red, white and blue, we spit on you, you stand for plunder, you will go under."

Some witnesses testified that they were seriously offended.

No one was hurt or threatened with injury during the protest.

Johnson was not the only protester to be charged with a crime.

Other charges included: vandalism, disorderly conduct, and a class C misdemeanor with a two hundred dollar fine, and of using abusive and obscene language in a public place causing a crowd to form.

He was convicted of the desecration of a venerated object in violation of Texas Penal Code Annotated § 42.11(a)(3), sentenced to one year in prison, and fined $2,000.

Johnson appealed his conviction to the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas, but lost.

He next petitioned the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to review the decision.

That court overturned his conviction, saying that the State of Texas could not punish Johnson for burning the flag because the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects such activity as symbolic speech.

The court also concluded that the flag burning in this case did not cause or threaten to cause a breach of the peace.

The State of Texas asked the Supreme Court of the United States to hear the case.

Attorneys David D. Cole and radical civil rights activist William Kunstler acted as Johnson's lawyers.

In 1989, the Supreme Court handed down a controversial 5–4 decision in favor of Gregory Johnson, holding that Johnson's conviction for flag desecration was inconsistent with the First Amendment.

The Court's decision invalidated laws against flag desecration in force in forty-eight of the fifty states.

In response to the Supreme Court decision in Texas v. Johnson, the United States Congress enacted legislation outlawing the desecration of the flag, which then-President George H. W. Bush allowed to pass into law without his signature.

The Flag Protection Act of 1989 went into effect at midnight on 28 October 1989.

On 30 October, Gregory Johnson joined Shawn Eichman, David Blalock, and Scott Tyler on the steps of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., where they set fire to three American flags while chanting "burn, baby, burn."

The four protesters were arrested and spent the night in jail.

The next day, Eichman, Blalock, and Tyler were charged with violating the Flag Protection Act of 1989, demonstrating without a permit, and disorderly conduct.

However, the United States Attorney's Office declined to file charges against Johnson, claiming that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him.

Johnson declared that the government's decision not to charge him was an "act of cowardice" and a "miscarriage of justice," and stated that he was outraged.

Mark Haggerty, Jennifer Campbell, Darius Strong and Carlos Garza were also charged with having violated the Flag Protection Act of 1989 outside a Seattle, Washington post office just a few minutes after the law went into effect on 28 October.

The consolidated cases of Shawn Eichman, David Blalock, and Scott Tyler eventually reached the Supreme Court with Eichman as the named respondent in United States v. Eichman (1990), which was argued together with the case United States v. Haggerty (1990).