After two attempted marches from Selma in 1965, civil rights leaders sought federal court protection before the Selma to Montgomery March. Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., appointed by President Eisenhower in 1955, oversaw the case. He had earlier joined the majority opinion in the case that made segregation on city buses illegal after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to white passengers. Using Brown v. Board of Education from 1954 as precedent, Johnson found racial segregation in facilities unconstitutional. In the 1965 case, he weighed the right of mobility against the right to march and ruled for the demonstrators, declaring that the march led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from Selma to Montgomery for voting equity was basic to constitutional principles. With support from President Lyndon B. Johnson, who authorized the Alabama National Guard to provide protection, the decision opened the way for the march and helped advance the civil rights movement.