Oath of Office of President Johnson

Sarah T. Hughes was born in Baltimore in 1896 and moved to Dallas in 1922. The Handbook of Texas says she served three terms in the Texas House, became the state's first woman district judge in 1935 and won a federal judgeship in 1961 despite opposition from the American Bar Association and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, with help from Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn. She later heard Roe v. Wade. Hughes said she liked to think Johnson chose her out of friendship, but knew his feelings about other Dallas federal judges made her the most acceptable.

What the plaque says

Oath of Office of President Johnson Near this point on November 22, 1963, Vice-President Lyndon Baines Johnson took the oath of office as 36th President of the United States. He is the first Texan to hold the office of President. The ceremony was held in the central compartment of "Air Force One," the military aircraft assigned to the President. The plane was parked on the concrete ramp at Gate 28, east concourse of this terminal. United States District Judge Sarah T. Hughes, of Dallas, a friend of long standing, was summoned to administer the oath. (Judge Hughes thus became the first woman in history to give the oath of office to a president of the United States. The new Chief Executive, with Mrs. Johnson on his right and Mrs. John F. Kennedy on the left, was sworn into office at 2:38 p.m.In the stresses of the day President Johnson had executive duties thrust upon him immediately during the flight to the Capitol. For over 30 years he had been in public service. Like some of his ancestors (including a university president) he had taught school, as a young man. He had served with distinction in Congress, 1937 to 1949; and in the U.S. Senate, 1949 - 1960, with an unsurpassed record as Senate Majority Leader. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dallas Museum of Art — 4.6 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 4.8 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 5.8 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 6.4 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Love Field — steps away
• Texas' First Airmail and Passenger Service — steps away
• Garvin Memorial Cemetery — 1.5 mi
• Cochran Chapel Cemetery — 1.5 mi