During the years following Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. district courts assumed the burden of implementing that decision across the country. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of the district court judges in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in that effort. The primary sources used are the district, appellate and Supreme Court opinions. This study concludes that many background variables used to study judicial behaviour are ineffective in this geographical area because of the homogeneity of the judges' backgrounds. But, as indicated by the Johnson appointments, a president can select judges that have a particular attitude toward an issue such as integration, if he has the desire and the political acumen to do so.