Georgia judge who helped integrate schools dies

Jet, Feb 21, 2005

GEORGIA JUDGE WHO HELPED INTEGRATE SCHOOLS DIES: Preston King (l) and retired Judge William Augustus Bootle, the federal judge who signed the 1961 court order desegregating the University of Georgia, address the media at the judge's Macon, GA, home in this photo taken in 2000. Bootie recently died at his home.

He was 102. President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Bootie to the federal bench in 1954, the same year the U.S. Supreme Court decided the landmark school desegregation case Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Bootie signed the University of Georgia order following a weeklong trial that pitted Black students Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes Jr. against the school's top ranks. He also ordered the Bibb Transit Co. to integrate seating on its buses, and ordered several middle Georgia counties to restore the names of Blacks who were removed from voter rolls. He retired as senior judge in 1970 but continued presiding over federal cases part-time until 1981. His wife of more than 70 years, Virginia Childs Bootie, died in June.