Ronald Davies (judge)

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Ronald Davies (judge) bigraphy, stories - North Dakota jurist

Ronald Davies (judge) : biography

December 11, 1904 – April 18, 1996

Ronald Norwood Davies (December 11, 1904 – April 18, 1996) was a federal judge for the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota (July 22, 1955 – 1996). He is best known for his role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis in the fall of 1957. Davies ordered the desegregation of the previously all-white Little Rock Central High.

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Biography

Early life

Davies was born on December 11, 1904, in Crookston in Polk County in northwestern Minnesota.Time Magazine. Monday, September 30, 1957. In 1927, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks, North Dakota. In 1930, he attained a law degree from Georgetown University Law School in Washington, D.C.The Federal Judicial Center.

He practiced law in Grand Forks for several years, before becoming a judge at the Grand Forks Municipal Court from 1932-1940. In 1940, Davies and a fellow Grand Forks attorney, Charles F. Peterson, formed a private law practice. During World War II, Davies served as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. After the war, Davies went back to his private practice.

On June 21, 1955, Davies was nominated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota, based in Fargo, vacated by Charles J. Vogel. Davies was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 22, 1955, and received his commission on July 27, 1955.

Little Rock

Davies is perhaps best known for challenging Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas, during the 1957 Little Rock Integration Crisis. On August 22, 1957, Judge Archibald K. Gardner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit temporarily assigned Judge Davies to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas in Little Rock, the state capital of Arkansas, where no judge had been sitting for several months.Craig Rains.

Osro Cobb, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, describes Davies, accordingly:

He was a comparatively new jurist and was full of energy, ready to tackle the large docket of cases that had accumulated during the many months when no judge was sitting at Little Rock. The condition of the docket was the reason for his assignment. I spent long hours briefing Judge Davies about the crowded docket because the government was a party to about 30 percent of the cases on it. The integration fight was boiling in the local media, but no motion or pleading relating to it was on file in the distrrict court when Judge Davies began his duties in Little Rock. All such matters heard by him originated after his arrival in Little Rock in August 1957.Osro Cobb, Osro Cobb of Arkansas: Memoirs of Historical Significance, Carol Griffee,ed. (Little Rock, Arkansas: Rose Publishing Company), 1989), pp. 180-181

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision (347 U.S. 483) on May 17, 1954. The decision called for the desegregation of all public schools. In 1955, the court declared that the desegregation process must continue with "all deliberate speed". The Little Rock School Board unanimously decided to comply with the high court’s ruling and agreed to a gradual desegregation plan, which would be implemented in the 1958 school year.Warren, Earl. Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Cornell Law School.

By 1957, the NAACP had registered nine black students to attend the lily-white Little Rock Central High School. Meanwhile, the "Mother’s League", a segregationist parents group, requested an injunction against the Little Rock School Board to prevent the nine students from attending the school. Segregationist parents also threatened to protest in front of the high school and physically block any black students from entering the school. Murray Reed, the chancellor of Pulaski County schools, granted the injunction on August 27, 1956, "on the grounds that integration could lead to violence." Judge Davies, however, nullified the injunction on August 30 and ordered the school board to proceed with integration on September 3. Time Magazine. Monday, September 23, 1957.