James Bonard Fowler

James Bonard Fowler (September 10, 1933 – July 5, 2015) was a convicted drug trafficker and an Alabama state trooper, known for fatally shooting civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson on February 18, 1965, during a peaceful march by protesters seeking voting rights. Fowler was among police and state troopers who attacked unarmed marchers that night in Marion, Alabama. A grand jury declined to indict him that year. It was not until 2005 that Fowler acknowledged shooting Jackson, a young deacon in the Baptist church, claiming to have acted in self defense. In response to Jackson's death, several days later civil rights leaders initiated the Selma to Montgomery marches as part of their campaign for voting rights. That year Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which President Lyndon B. Johnson signed.

Early life and education Fowler was born in 1933 to a farming family in Geneva County, Alabama. He attended local schools, which were racially segregated, as were other public facilities at the time. He played football in high school. After graduating, he served for a period in the US Navy from 1951 to 1953 during the Korean War as a Petty officer third class, and then attended the University of Alabama in the late 1950s. and the police began to beat the protestors. on charges of first degree and second degree murder for the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson (no relation). Fowler subsequently surrendered to authorities. Fowler was among a number of persons who were being prosecuted in criminal cold cases from the civil rights era. Fowler apologized for the shooting but insisted that he had acted in self-defense, believing that Jackson was trying to grab his gun in the melee.

Shooting of Nathan Johnson

In December 2007, the Anniston Star reported new information related to the 1966 shooting death of Nathan Johnson, an African-American man, allegedly by Fowler at the Alabaster, Alabama police station. Johnson had been arrested for suspicion of drunken driving on US Highway 31 and was shot in an altercation with Fowler, then still an Alabama state trooper. The Star said these details were known to both the prosecution and defense in Fowler's 2007 case related to the shooting death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, then under prosecution.

In 2011, FBI officials announced that they were seeking information about the May 8, 1966, death of 34-year-old Nathan Johnson, a cold case from the civil rights era. They repeated allegations that Fowler had fatally shot him. At the time, the press had reported that law enforcement officials said Johnson had grabbed a baton from Fowler and was attacking him; the officer fatally shot Johnson twice in the chest. Fowler entered the US Army after being dismissed from the state troopers and served in Vietnam. His brother Robert had died there, and Fowler was able to join his former rifle unit.

US Army service and decades in Southeast Asia Fowler served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam War from 1968 to 1974 as a Sergeant First Class, and was awarded the Silver Star twice, along with the Purple Heart, for his injuries in combat during his military service. For the next two decades, Fowler returned to the United States for brief periods to take care of business in Alabama but lived primarily in Thailand. During this period he became interested in Buddhism, married Noie, a woman from Burma,