A. P. Tureaud
| Alexander Pierre Tureaud, Sr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 26, 1899 |
| Died |
January 22, 1972 (aged 72) New Orleans Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA |
| Alma mater | Howard University |
| Occupation | Attorney; Civil rights activist |
| Political party | Republican-turned-Democratic (1944) |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism[1] |
| Children | Including A. P. Tureaud, Jr. |
Alexander Pierre Tureaud, Sr., known as A. P. Tureaud (February 26, 1899 – January 22, 1972), was the attorney for the New Orleans chapter of the NAACP during the civil rights movement. With the assistance of Thurgood Marshall and Robert Carter from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, A. P. Tureaud filed the lawsuit that successfully ended the system of Jim Crow segregation in New Orleans. That case paved the way for integrating the first two elementary schools in the Deep South.
Louis Berry, the civil rights attorney from Alexandria and the first African American admitted to the Louisiana bar since Tureaud himself, had hoped to join Tureaud's law firm in the late 1940s, but Tureaud could not at the time afford to take on another attorney.[2]
Legacy
The doctrine of separate but equal began in Louisiana, and the supreme court case decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, the case that protected the right of state legislatures to enact segregationist laws throughout the Southern United States, began in New Orleans.[3] In 1954, the United States Supreme Court overturned Plessy and ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional and must be desegregated "with all deliberate speed." In the following years, A.P. Tureaud and the NAACP initiated the lawsuits which eventually forced the Orleans Parish School System to desegregate.
Tureaud also filed suit in 1953 against the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors seeking desegregation on behalf of his minor son, A. P. Tureaud, Jr.[4]
In 1956, Tureaud noted that U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican nominee, improved considerably on his performance in African-American voting districts in Louisiana compared to 1952, when he lost the state of Louisiana. Tureaud viewed the shift -- Eisenhower in victory statewide for instance jumped from 7 percent in 1952 in Baton Rouge to 71 percent -- as a black protest against segregation laws passed by the Louisiana State Legislature. While some 161,000 blacks went to the polls in 1956, more than 31,000 were purged from the rolls over the next two years. Some five thousand alone were excluded in Ouachita Parish in northeastern Louisiana.[5] [6]
References
- ↑ http://nbccongress.org/features/history-african-american-catholics.asp
- ↑ "Rachel L. Emanuel, History: Black Lawyersin Louisiana Prior to 1950, August/September 2005, p. 108" (PDF). lsba.org. Retrieved July 13, 2013.
- ↑ R. Bentley Anderson. Black, White, And Catholic: New Orleans Interracialism, 1947-1956.] 2005 Oct. 30. ISBN 0-8265-1483-9.
- ↑ "Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University Agricultural and Mechanical et al, Appellants, v. Alexander P. Tureaud, Jr., a Minor, by Alexander P. Tureaud, Sr., his father, Appellee". openjurist.org. Retrieved July 12, 2015.
- ↑ Perry H. Howard, Political Tendencies in Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1957), pp. 333-335
- ↑ Billy Hathorn, The Republican Party in Louisiana, 1920-1980, (Natchitoches: Northwestern State University, 1980), p. 89
Other sources
- Rachel Lorraine Emanuel and Denise Barkis-Richter. Louisiana Public Broadcasting. "Journey for Justice: The A.P. Tureaud Story."
- Saint Augustine Church, Fauborg Treme, New Orleans. "Alexander Pierre Tureaud: Civil Rights Attorney (1899 – 1972)."
- Donald E. Devore and Joseph Logsdon. Crescent City Schools 1991 Jul. ISBN 0-940984-66-0. Chapters VI and VII.
- Wesley, Charles H. (1981) [1928]. The History of Alpha Phi Alpha, A Development in College Life. Foundation Publishers. ASIN: B000ESQ14W.
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