MSS 164 - A. P. Tureaud Collection: Inventory

A. P. TUREAUD INTERVIEW

(Mss 164)

Inventory

Earl K. Long Library

University of New Orleans

Summary

Size:                           1 item (87 pages)

Geographic

locations:                 New Orleans, Louisiana

Inclusive dates:      1969/70

Summary:                 Interview of Alexander Pierre Tureaud, New Orleans Creole of color and civil rights lawyer, by Dr. Joseph Logsdon.  Planned and executed by Tureaud and Logsdon as the basis for an autobiography of Tureaud, the interview, conducted in 1969/70, covers Tureaud's family background, childhood and youth, early education, young manhood, and travels to Chicago, Buffalo, and New York during the late 1900s.  The transcription for this copy was made from oral tape recordings made by Dr. Logsdon and was read and approved by Tureaud.

Source:                     Gift, November 1983

Access:                     No restrictions

Copyright:                Physical rights are retained by the Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans.

Citation:                    A. P. Tureaud Interview, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans

Biographical Note

Alexander Pierre Tureaud was born in New Orleans on February 26, 1899, less than 40 years after the end of slavery and just three years after the Plessy v. Ferguson decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court established the "separate but equal" doctrine of legalized racial segregation.  Tureaud lived under Jim Crow laws, the most severe implementation of racial separateness, and worked to see these laws abolished.

A 1925 graduate of the Howard University Law School, Tureaud was admitted to the Louisiana Bar in 1927 and admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1935.  From 1937 until 1947 he was the only practicing black attorney in Louisiana.  As the local attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., and intimate of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Tureaud handled almost all the desegregation and other civil rights cases filed in Louisiana from the early 1940s through the 1960s.  Among the many civil rights cases, Tureaud successfully obtained equal pay for Louisiana's black teachers and the admission of qualified students -- regardless of color -- to state-supported professional, graduate and undergraduate schools.  He fought to end segregation on city buses in Louisiana, and he successfully defended one of the first sit-in cases to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1931 Tureaud married Lucille Dejoie.  They had six children.  Tureaud died January 22, 1972, after a lengthy battle with cancer.

Sources:        “Alexander Pierre Tureaud,” s.v. A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, ed. Glenn R. Conrad (New Orleans: Louisiana Historical Association, 1988); “A. P. Tureaud,” http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/famouscreoles/aptureaud/aptureaud.htm (accessed June 8, 2006).

Container List

164-1              Photocopy of typescript of interview of A. P. Tureaud by Dr. Joseph Logsdon

Index Terms

African American lawyers—Louisiana—New Orleans

African Americans—Civil rights—Louisiana

Logsdon, Joseph

Tureaud, A. P.