Barefoot Sanders | Federal judge, 83

Barefoot Sanders, 83, a U.S. district judge who presided over more than two decades of litigation to desegregate Dallas schools, died Sunday at his home in Dallas.

Judge Sanders, who served as a deputy attorney general under Lyndon Johnson, was the district's senior judge. He was appointed by Jimmy Carter in 1979.

He took over the desegregation case in 1981, presiding over it until its closure in 2003.

Judge Sanders veered away from the idea of busing black children to white schools as a solution to segregation. Instead, he approved magnet schools that would offer good academic programs in minority neighborhoods and would be attractive to both races.

- AP