Benjamin Franklin Cameron (December 14, 1890 – April 3, 1964) was an American jurist from the state of Mississippi. He served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1955 to 1964. The Fifth Circuit was a key court during the civil rights era in the 1950s and 1960s as it covered Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, all of which had varying levels of racial segregation. During his tenure, Cameron, a segregationist, often found himself in the minority of civil-rights cases, with a group of more liberal judges, known as the Fifth Circuit Four, overturning Jim Crow laws. Shortly before his death, he charged the Chief Judge of the circuit with purposefully assigning these judges to cases with the intent of overturning segregation.
Benjamin Franklin Cameron
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
Born 1890 in Meridian, MS
Died 1964
FJC ID: 359
Career output and lasting influence
Opinions attributed per year · peak 31/year
Later decisions citing those opinions, per year · peak 262/year
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals · 1955–1964
Both charts share the same year axis. Opinion counts include only opinions in our corpus attributed to this judge so far — a year at zero can mean an attribution gap, not judicial silence. Influence typically outlasts the career: citations keep climbing after the last opinion.
- Gender
- Male
- Race
- White
Prior employment
- Private practice, Meridian, Mississippi1914–1955
U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi1929–1933
Appointments
1955–1964 · Appointed by Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican)Term ended: Death
Education
- Cumberland School of LawLL.B. · 1914
- University of the SouthA.B. · 1911