He was 39 when Johnson made him attorney general in 1967, the second youngest ever.

Attorney General Ramsey Clark speaks at a press conference.

NEW YORK — Ramsey Clark, the attorney general in the Johnson administration who became an outspoken activist for unpopular causes and a harsh critic of U.S.

Clark, whose father, Tom Clark, was attorney general and U.S.

After serving in President Lyndon Johnson’s Cabinet in 1967 and ’68, Clark set up a private law practice in New York in which he championed civil rights, fought racism and the death penalty, and represented declared foes of the United States including former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.

New York civil rights attorney Ron Kuby, who worked with Clark on numerous cases, called the death “very, very sad in a season of losses.”.

He was 39 when Johnson made him attorney general in 1967, the second youngest ever — Robert Kennedy had been 36.

Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, who had been Harry Truman’s attorney general before he joined the high court in 1949, swore in his son as attorney general, then retired to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.

Ramsey Clark said his work at Justice drew him into the civil rights revolution, which he called “the noblest quest of the American people in our time.”.

But as Johnson’s attorney general, Clark had the job of prosecuting Dr.