John Swainson

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John Burley Swainson (July 31, 1925 - May 13, 1994) was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.

Swainson was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada and moved to Port Huron, Michigan as an infant with his mother. He served in the United States Army during World War II and lost both legs in a land mine explosion November 15, 1944, near Metz, Alsace-Lorraine. He was awarded France's Croix de Guerre, the Presidential Unit Citation with two battle stars, and the Purple Heart, all before his nineteenth birthday. After months of convalescence and rehabilitation at the Percy Jones Hospital in Battle Creek, Swainson learned to walk upright and unassisted.

He received a B.A. from Olivet College, where he also met and married his wife, Alice Nielson. She accompanied him to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a law degree in 1951. While there, he was elected student president of the law school.

Swainson was elected to the Michigan State Senate from the 18th District in 1954 and was reelected in 1958. In 1958, when Philip Hart was elected to the United States Senate, Swainson succeeded Hart as Lieutenant Governor of Michigan under Governor G. Mennen Williams. When the long-serving and popular Williams announced he would not seek reelection in 1960, Swainson decided to enter the race, despite the advice of influential Democratic Party members, including Williams, not to run in deference to three-term Michigan Secretary of State James Hare. Swainson won the primary against the party favorite, largely due to strong support from labor unions. After defeating Republican Paul D. Bagwell, a Michigan State University professor in the general election, the 35 year-old Swainson became the youngest Governor of Michigan in the 20th century. (The "Boy Governor", Stevens T. Mason, elected at age 24 in 1835, is the youngest.) His primary opponent, James Hare, continued to serve as Michigan Secretary of State until 1971.

In 1962, Swainson was defeated by Republican George W. Romney, the chairman of the American Motors Corporation and who had never before held elected office. The win was attributed in part to Romney's appeal to independent voters, as well as to the increasing influence of suburban Detroit voters, who by 1962 were more likely to vote Republican than the heavily Democratic city.

On June 23, 1963, Swainson accompanied the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Detroit mayor Jerome Cavanagh and approximately 125,000 people on a "Walk for Freedom" march down Detroit's Woodward Avenue.

He served as Michigan Circuit Court judge of the 3rd Circuit from 1965 to 1971, and as a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court from 1971 to 1975. In 1975 he was accused of accepting a bribe and found not guilty, but was convicted of perjury over his testimony to the grand jury. As a result he was forced to leave the Supreme Court and temporarily lost his license to practice law.

He later became an antiques dealer and became president of the Michigan Historical Commission.

Swainson died of a heart attack in Manchester, Michigan and is interred at Oak Grove Cemetery there. His wife Alice died September 5, 2004 in Manchester at the age of 77.

The Michigan Historical Commission established the Governor John B. Swainson Award in 1996 to honor him for his love of history and as one of the few public officials to have served in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of state government. The commission presents the award to state, county or municipal employees who have contributed to the preservation of Michigan history even though such activities are not part of their primary job responsibility. [1]