A Special Talented Generation *Salute*

A.P. Tureaud

Alexander Pierre Tureaud was born on February 26, 1899  in the 7th Ward of New Orleans.  A 1925 graduate of the Howard University Law School (HUSL), Tureaud was admitted to the Louisiana Bar in 1927 and admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court in 1935.

In 1940, the NAACP in New Orleans summoned the legendary litigator Thurgood Marshall to represent it in the case of Joseph P. McKelpin v. Orleans Parish School Board. The case was initiated by black teachers from the segregated public school system, who had sued the school board for salaries equal to their white counterparts. Marshall retained Tureaud as local counsel on the case. The case was settled out of court on September 1, 1942, and black teachers were offered a graduated pay increase over the next two years.

That year, Tureaud resigned his post at the Customs Office and entered private practice. For the next thirty years, he represented plaintiffs on dozens of significant cases, which gradually chipped away at the institution of segregation in New Orleans and Louisiana.

In 1950 and 1951, Tureaud represented plaintiffs in Daryle Foster v. Board of Supervisors of LSU, Roy Wilson v. Board of Supervisors of LSU, and Payne v. LSU in federal court. He won all three cases and forced LSU to admit blacks.

Tureaud represented the NAACP in Edward Hall v. T. J. Nagel, Registrar of Voters in 1952, which eliminated voting procedures designed to exclude blacks from voting.

Tureaud represented parents in Earl Benjamin Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board in February 1956, which echoed the earlier Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, of 1954 May 17. The decision from that case, rendered by Federal District Judge J. Skelly Wright, suppressed the Louisiana state legislature's attempt to preserve segregated public schools through legislation. Tureaud's many petitions following this decision led directly to the desegregation of New Orleans Public Schools over the next decade.

His impact on the Civil Rights Movement is inspiring. As the civil rights movement intensified throughout the South, Tureaud took the case of three students in Baton Rouge, who had been arrested for disturbing the peace during a sit-in protest. With the support of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP, Tureaud took Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157, to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on 1961 Dec. 11. The decision legalized sit-in protests at segregated private businesses and restaurants. 

Tureaud represented a white woman attempting to enter the historically black Grambling State University in 1965.  He represented teachers from Madison Parish in Linda Williams v. George Kimbrough in 1969, who had been fired and replaced by white teachers. That same year, he won Dana Hubbard v. Fred Tannehill, which banned text books from Louisiana public schools which supported white racial superiority. The defendant Tannehill of Pineville was the president of the Louisiana State Board of Education.

Tureaud filed formal complaints and multiple lawsuits against City Hall in New Orleans to desegregate City Park, Audubon Park, public buses, the New Orleans Airport restaurant, and other public facilities.

Tureaud passed away on January 22, 1972.  His papers are archived at the Amistad Research Center, at Tilton Hall on the campus of Tulane University. London Ave., a thoroughfare in New Orleans, was renamed A.P. Tureaud Ave. in his honor. Marie C. Couvent School at 2021 Pauger Street was renamed after him in 1999.

Tureaud Hall on the campus of LSU was named for A.P. Tureaud, Sr. His son, A.P. Tureaud, Jr., was LSU's first African American undergraduate student.

In his honor take a moment and enjoy the sounds of a traditional N'awlins brass band.

 Join Talented Generation as we *Salute* A.P. Tureaud!!!

Have a great evening.