June 28, 1962
In 1957, Austin folklorist and radio storyteller John Henry Faulk ran afoul of AWARE, a New York-based for-profit company that vetted entertainers for communist leanings during the height of the Cold war. His radio career ended, and he sued for libel. On this day the jury awarded him the largest libel judgment in history to that date—$3.5 million. An appeals court subsequently reduced the amount to $500,000. Legal fees and accumulated debts erased the balance of the award. In 1974 CBS broadcast its movie version of Fear on Trial, Faulk’s book that described his battle against AWARE. The Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin sponsors the John Henry Faulk Conference on the First Amendment and the downtown branch of the Austin library is named in his honor.
