J. Thomas Jewell

Joseph Thomas Jewell, Sr., known as J. Thomas Jewell (March 6, 1909 – December 10, 1993),^[1] was a Democrat from New Roads in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, who served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1936 to 1968. In the 1960-1964 term, the second tenure of Governor Jimmie Davis, he was the House Speaker.^[2]

Jewell was a delegate to the 1960 Democratic National Convention, which met in Los Angeles, California, to nominate the Kennedy-Johnson ticket,^[3] an easy winner in the race for Louisiana's then ten electoral votes in the general election against Republican nominee Richard M. Nixon and a slate of unpledged electors, including future Governor David C. Treen.

Speaker Jewell, as did most elected officials in the Deep South at the time, opposed school desegregation. On November 14, 1960, six days after the election of John F. Kennedy as president, Jewell told his legislative colleagues:

The courts are traditionally the guardian of liberty. They have the right to pass upon the actions of the lawmakers of Louisiana and every other state. They can render opinions regarding the constitutionality of laws passed by Congress itself. But no power on earth – including the federal court – can assume unto itself the right to prejudge the actions of the Legislature.^[4]

Jewell and his wife, the former Dorothy Morgan (1909-2008), had a son, J. Thomas Jewell, Jr. (1937-2002), who died of pancreatic cancer at his residence in New Roads. The junior Jewell was retired as a landman for the Warren American Oil Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma.^[5]

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