Alexander Pierre "A. P." Tureaud Sr. (February 26, 1899 – January 22, 1972) was an African-American

attorney Attorney may refer to: * Lawyer ** Attorney at law, in some jurisdictions * Attorney, one who has power of attorney * ''The Attorney'', a 2013 South Korean film See also * Attorney general, the principal legal officer of (or advisor to) a gove ...

who headed the legal team for the

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

chapter of the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

during the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

. With the assistance of

Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...

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 The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

segregation in New Orleans. That case paved the way for integrating the first two elementary schools in the

Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war ...

Career

Background

Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

arose directly from a Supreme Court ruling which validated a "states' rights" notion that blacks and whites could be equally well served using separate but equal public facilities. With ''

Plessy v. Ferguson ''Plessy v. Ferguson'', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality ...

'' (163 U.S. 537 (1896)) the United States Supreme Court confirmed the right of state legislatures to enact discriminatory legislation. With this authority, civic organizations throughout the American South moved to restrict citizen access and limit citizens from exercising their civil rights based on the basis of their social and economic status, and on their personal history as descended from a former slave.R. Bentley Anderson, ''Black, White, And Catholic: New Orleans Interracialism, 1947-1956'', October 30, 2005. . Louis Berry, the civil rights attorney from

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, 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.

Cases

In 1954, the United States Supreme Court overturned ''Plessy'' and ruled in '' Brown v. Board of Education'' 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 Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

Board of Supervisors seeking desegregation on behalf of his minor son, A. P. Tureaud Jr. As a result, his son became the first black student at LSU.

Death

Tureaud died in New Orleans in 1972, roughly a month shy of what would have been his 73rd birthday.

Personal life

Tureaud was

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, a member of St Augustine Church and the Knights of Peter Claver.

Honors

The subject has a statue at the beginning of A.P. Tureaud Street in the 7th ward.Campbell-Rock, C.C. (15 March 2021). "New Orleans HBCU graduates in the Modern Civil Rights Movement"
Louisiana Weekly website
Retrieved 29 July 2021.

Notes

References

* Rachel Lorraine Emanuel and Denise Barkis-Richter. ''Louisiana Public Broadcasting''

* Saint Augustine Church, Fauborg Treme, New Orleans

*

New Orleans Public Library System The New Orleans Public Library (NOPL) is the public library service of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. History The system began in 1895 in the Fisk Free and Public Library in a building on Lafayette Square. Abijah Fisk was ...

"Notable African Americans from Louisiana."
* Donald E. Devore and Joseph Logsdon. ''Crescent City Schools'', July 1991. . Chapters VI and VII. *
A More Noble Cause: A. P. Tureaud and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Louisiana (A Personal Biography).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tureaud, A.P. 1899 births 1972 deaths African-American Catholics Lawyers from New Orleans Louisiana Republicans Louisiana Democrats Howard University alumni American civil rights lawyers Activists from Louisiana 20th-century American lawyers Knights of Peter Claver & Ladies Auxiliary 20th-century African-American people Roman Catholic activists