Johnson Jay Hayes was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina, on January 23, 1886. Hayes was a lawyer in North Wilkesboro (Wilkes County) who served as solicitor of the 17th Judicial District (1915-1923) and as federal judge for the Middle District of North Carolina (1926-1957). In 1954, Hayes ruled against a group of Black students seeking admission to the University of North Carolina law school, one of several integration cases combined later that year in Brown v. Board of Education. He died in Laurel Springs (Alleghany County) on October 22, 1970.