Block, Upload, Automoderated users, edit, move, protect, rollback
57,799
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Created page with "{{Infobox officeholder | name=Frederick Saugrain<br>"Fred S." LeBlanc, Sr. | image=Fred LeBlanc of LA.jpg | nationality=American | office=Louisiana Atto..."
{{Infobox officeholder
| name=Frederick Saugrain<br>"Fred S." LeBlanc, Sr.
| image=Fred LeBlanc of LA.jpg
| nationality=[[United States|American]]
| office=[[Louisiana]] Attorney General
| party=[[Democratic Party|Democrat]]
| term_start=1944
| term_end=1948
| preceded=Eugene Stanley
| succeeded=[[Bolivar Edwards Kemp, Jr.]]
| term_start2=May 1952
| term_end2=May 1956
| preceded2=Bolivar Edwards Kemp, Jr.
| succeeded2=[[Jack P. F. Gremillion]]
| office3=[[Mayor]] of [[Baton Rouge]], Louisiana
| term_start3=1941
| term_end3=1944
| preceded3=W. H. Bynum
| succeeded3=Powers Higginbotham
| office4=Judge of the Louisiana 19th Judicial District court
| term_start4=April 11, 1958
| term_end4=June 11, 1969
| preceded4=
| succeeded4=John S. Covington
| birth_date=July 24, 1897
| death_date=June 11, 1969 (aged 71)
| birth_place=near Baton Rouge
| death_place=Baton Rouge, Louisiana
| occupation=[[Attorney]]
| alma_mater=Catholic High School<br>
[[Louisiana State University]] Law Center
| religion=[[Roman Catholic]]
| spouse= Genieveve Bruce LeBlanc
| children=Fred S. LeBlanc, Jr. (born 1926)<br>
Francis P. H. LeBlanc (born 1929)<br>
Judge [[Daniel W. LeBlanc]]<br>
Lawrence LeBlanc (deceased)<br>
Jane LeBlanc McMahon
}}
'''Frederick Saugrain LeBlanc, Sr.''', known as '''Fred S. LeBlanc''' (July 24, 1897 – June 11, 1969),<ref> was a 20th-century [[politician]] in [[Louisiana]] who served two terms as his state's attorney general. He was firmly allied with the [[Huey Long|anti-Long]] faction of the predominant [[Democratic Party]].
==Background==
LeBlanc graduated in 1916 from Catholic High School in [[Baton Rouge]].<ref name=chs>{{cite web|url=http://www.catholichigh.org/content.cfm?id=343|title=Catholic High School Hall of Fame|publisher=catholichigh.org|accessdate=September 5, 2010}}</ref> He thereafter graduated in 1920 from the [[Louisiana State University]] Law Center. For a time he was a university [[professor]] and the district attorney of West Baton Rouge Parish.<ref name=mherald/> From 1941 to 1944, he was the [[mayor]] of Baton Rouge.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://brgov.com/dept/Council/agendas/Whos-Who.pdf|title=Elected and Appointed Officials in City-Parish Government|publisher=brgov.com|accessdate=September 5, 2010}}</ref> In 1944, LeBlanc was elected state attorney general in the first administration of [[Governor]] [[Jimmie Davis]]. He defeated by a relatively narrow margin the Long-backed candidate, state Senator Joe T. Cawthorn of Mansfield in DeSoto Parish.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/12966755/|title=Louisiana election returns|publisher=''Miami, ([[Oklahoma]]) Daily News''|date=March 1, 1944|page=3|accessdate=October 28, 2014}}</ref>
Also victorious on the Davis ticket was the lieutenant governor candidate, [[J. Emile Verret]], who defeated [[Earl Long|Earl Kemp Long]] for the second office in a runoff election.<ref>''Minden Herald'', December 24, 1943.</ref> LeBlanc was unseated in 1948 by Bolivar Edwards Kemp, Jr., the choice of the successful gubernatorial candidate that year, Earl Long. LeBlanc instead ran with Long's opponent, former Governor [[Sam Houston Jones]], who fared poorly in the 1948 contest.<ref>''Minden Herald,'' January 16, 1948, p. 2.</ref> Bolivar Kemp, the new attorney general, was a brother-in-law of Cajun [[humorist]] and [[chef]] Justin Wilson.
In 1952, LeBlanc returned to office as attorney general as a candidate on the [[Robert F. Kennon]] intraparty ticket. He defeated the Long choice, [[Joseph A. Sims|Joe Arthur Sims]] of Hammon in Tangipahoa Parish.<ref name=gbooks>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Y-0-kmu4vk0C&pg=PA211&lpg=PA211&dq=Judge+Fred+S.+LeBlanc&source=bl&ots=GWy60EYgVt&sig=Zi1prmFn-z904kd93Yj4uDfhQEI&hl=en&ei=4ISKTMTHPISBlAfi66XlCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Judge%20Fred%20S.%20LeBlanc&f=false|author=Walter G. Cowan and Jack B. McGuire|title=Louisiana Governors: Rulers, Rascals, and Reformers|page=211|publisher=Google Books]accessdate=September 10, 2010}}</ref>
==1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott==
In the summer of 1953, LeBlanc intervened with a short-lived Baton Rouge Bus boycott by T. J. Jemison, an [[African-American]] minister. Jemison tested a new local ordinance allowing black passengers to fill up empty seats from the rear of the bus so long as whites could have access to the front seats. Jemison sat in a front seat of a bus. The bus company suspended two drivers for not complying with the ordinance. The drivers' union called a four-day strike, which ended when Attorney General LeBlanc declared the ordinance unconstitutional on the premise that it violated Louisiana's [[segregation]] laws. Blacks then formed the United Defense League, organized a free-ride network so that passengers could avoid using the city buses, and filed suit against the city to desegregate the buses. The Baton Rouge experience was observed by [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]], who wrote that Jemison's "painstaking description of the Baton Rouge experience proved invaluable" to him two years later in the bus boycott in [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]], [[Alabama]].<ref name=bono>The Best of New Orleans.com, June 17, 2003.</ref>
On June 23, 1953, Jemison called off the boycott after the city council passed a new ordinance under which the first-come, first-served, seating system of back-to-front and front-to-back was reinstated, with the first two seats on any bus reserved for white passengers and the back bench left for blacks. Anyone else could sit on any of the rows in the middle. To comply with state segregation laws, blacks and white were prohibited from sitting next to each other within this arrangement.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis53.htm#1953brbb|title=Baton Rouge Bus Boycott|publisher=Civil Rights Movement Veterans|accessdate=September 5, 2010}}</ref> While a number of boycotters had wanted to challenge segregation directly, the majority backed the municipal compromise.<ref name=bono/>
==Defeat in 1956==
LeBlanc was unseated in the 1956 Democratic primary by [[Jack P.F. Gremillion]], the choice of Earl Long, the runaway winner of the governor's race that year. LeBlanc had years earlier taught Gremillion at LSU and claimed that his opponent lacked the capabilities needed for the position of attorney general.<ref name=mherald>"LeBlanc Pledges Segregation Fight," ''Minden Herald','' February 2, 1956, p. 1.</ref>LeBlanc ran in 1956 on the ticket of [[Chep Morrison]] the mayor of [[New Orleans]], who made the first of his three failed gubernatorial bids.<ref>Louisiana Secretary of State, Primary election returns, January 17, 1956.</ref>In the runoff election with Gremillion, LeBlanc pledged a full-fledged fight against racial integration.<ref name=mherald/>
After his tenure as attorney general, LeBlanc was soon elected as a [[judge]] of the 19th Judicial District in East Baton Rouge Parish, a position which he assumed on April 11, 1958.<ref name=chs/> In this capacity in the summer of 1959, LeBlanc signed the long-remembered letter which committed his old rival, Earl Long, to undergo psychiatric treatment for paranoid [[schizophrenia]].<ref name=gbooks/> Long later said that signing the order was the "happiest day" of Judge LeBlanc's life.<ref name=gbooks/>
Judge LeBlanc was also known for imposing stiff penalties and sky-high [[bail]] on civil rights demonstrators who came before his court.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=7idHI9KdCfwC&pg=PA293&lpg=PA293&dq=when+was+sargent+pitcher+the+district+attorney+in+Baton+Rouge%3F&source=bl&ots=9HoIUheuHx&sig=vD_aN0UjREIq5fArw1k0haMoa5o&hl=en&ei=5esKTY2MKsGB8gb446yyDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=when%20was%20sargent%20pitcher%20the%20district%20attorney%20in%20Baton%20Rouge%3F&f=false|author=Adam Fairclough|title=Race and Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972|publisher=Athens, [[Georgia]]: [[University of Georgia]] Press, 1995|page=293}}</ref>w, p. 293|accessdate=December 16, 2010}}</ref>
In December 1965, LeBlanc presided over a death-penalty case in Baton Rouge stemming from the shooting of a convenience store clerk. A [[capital punishment]] watchdog group claimed that the trial was "rife with serious constitutional errors: suppressed mitigating evidence, perjured testimony, and ineffective assistance of counsel." Repeatedly, Judge LeBlanc refused defense requests to delay the trial.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.capitalpunishmentbook.com/?p=234|author=Billy Sinclair|title=A Death Penalty Trial|publisher=capitalpunishmenbook.com|date=1965|accessdate=September 10, 2010}}</ref>
LeBlanc died while still serving as a district judge. He was succeeded by John S. Covington, the appointee of Governor [[John J. McKeithen]].
Though LeBlanc is mentioned in ''Who's Who in America'' in several editions during the 1940s, there is no biographical information included in the national publication, not even his date of birth.
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:LeBlanc, Fred S.}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Attorneys]]
[[Category:Professors]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:Mayors]]
[[Category:Judges]]
[[Category:Democrats]]
[[Category:Catholics]]
[[Category:Catholic Politicians]]
| name=Frederick Saugrain<br>"Fred S." LeBlanc, Sr.
| image=Fred LeBlanc of LA.jpg
| nationality=[[United States|American]]
| office=[[Louisiana]] Attorney General
| party=[[Democratic Party|Democrat]]
| term_start=1944
| term_end=1948
| preceded=Eugene Stanley
| succeeded=[[Bolivar Edwards Kemp, Jr.]]
| term_start2=May 1952
| term_end2=May 1956
| preceded2=Bolivar Edwards Kemp, Jr.
| succeeded2=[[Jack P. F. Gremillion]]
| office3=[[Mayor]] of [[Baton Rouge]], Louisiana
| term_start3=1941
| term_end3=1944
| preceded3=W. H. Bynum
| succeeded3=Powers Higginbotham
| office4=Judge of the Louisiana 19th Judicial District court
| term_start4=April 11, 1958
| term_end4=June 11, 1969
| preceded4=
| succeeded4=John S. Covington
| birth_date=July 24, 1897
| death_date=June 11, 1969 (aged 71)
| birth_place=near Baton Rouge
| death_place=Baton Rouge, Louisiana
| occupation=[[Attorney]]
| alma_mater=Catholic High School<br>
[[Louisiana State University]] Law Center
| religion=[[Roman Catholic]]
| spouse= Genieveve Bruce LeBlanc
| children=Fred S. LeBlanc, Jr. (born 1926)<br>
Francis P. H. LeBlanc (born 1929)<br>
Judge [[Daniel W. LeBlanc]]<br>
Lawrence LeBlanc (deceased)<br>
Jane LeBlanc McMahon
}}
'''Frederick Saugrain LeBlanc, Sr.''', known as '''Fred S. LeBlanc''' (July 24, 1897 – June 11, 1969),<ref> was a 20th-century [[politician]] in [[Louisiana]] who served two terms as his state's attorney general. He was firmly allied with the [[Huey Long|anti-Long]] faction of the predominant [[Democratic Party]].
==Background==
LeBlanc graduated in 1916 from Catholic High School in [[Baton Rouge]].<ref name=chs>{{cite web|url=http://www.catholichigh.org/content.cfm?id=343|title=Catholic High School Hall of Fame|publisher=catholichigh.org|accessdate=September 5, 2010}}</ref> He thereafter graduated in 1920 from the [[Louisiana State University]] Law Center. For a time he was a university [[professor]] and the district attorney of West Baton Rouge Parish.<ref name=mherald/> From 1941 to 1944, he was the [[mayor]] of Baton Rouge.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://brgov.com/dept/Council/agendas/Whos-Who.pdf|title=Elected and Appointed Officials in City-Parish Government|publisher=brgov.com|accessdate=September 5, 2010}}</ref> In 1944, LeBlanc was elected state attorney general in the first administration of [[Governor]] [[Jimmie Davis]]. He defeated by a relatively narrow margin the Long-backed candidate, state Senator Joe T. Cawthorn of Mansfield in DeSoto Parish.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/12966755/|title=Louisiana election returns|publisher=''Miami, ([[Oklahoma]]) Daily News''|date=March 1, 1944|page=3|accessdate=October 28, 2014}}</ref>
Also victorious on the Davis ticket was the lieutenant governor candidate, [[J. Emile Verret]], who defeated [[Earl Long|Earl Kemp Long]] for the second office in a runoff election.<ref>''Minden Herald'', December 24, 1943.</ref> LeBlanc was unseated in 1948 by Bolivar Edwards Kemp, Jr., the choice of the successful gubernatorial candidate that year, Earl Long. LeBlanc instead ran with Long's opponent, former Governor [[Sam Houston Jones]], who fared poorly in the 1948 contest.<ref>''Minden Herald,'' January 16, 1948, p. 2.</ref> Bolivar Kemp, the new attorney general, was a brother-in-law of Cajun [[humorist]] and [[chef]] Justin Wilson.
In 1952, LeBlanc returned to office as attorney general as a candidate on the [[Robert F. Kennon]] intraparty ticket. He defeated the Long choice, [[Joseph A. Sims|Joe Arthur Sims]] of Hammon in Tangipahoa Parish.<ref name=gbooks>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Y-0-kmu4vk0C&pg=PA211&lpg=PA211&dq=Judge+Fred+S.+LeBlanc&source=bl&ots=GWy60EYgVt&sig=Zi1prmFn-z904kd93Yj4uDfhQEI&hl=en&ei=4ISKTMTHPISBlAfi66XlCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Judge%20Fred%20S.%20LeBlanc&f=false|author=Walter G. Cowan and Jack B. McGuire|title=Louisiana Governors: Rulers, Rascals, and Reformers|page=211|publisher=Google Books]accessdate=September 10, 2010}}</ref>
==1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott==
In the summer of 1953, LeBlanc intervened with a short-lived Baton Rouge Bus boycott by T. J. Jemison, an [[African-American]] minister. Jemison tested a new local ordinance allowing black passengers to fill up empty seats from the rear of the bus so long as whites could have access to the front seats. Jemison sat in a front seat of a bus. The bus company suspended two drivers for not complying with the ordinance. The drivers' union called a four-day strike, which ended when Attorney General LeBlanc declared the ordinance unconstitutional on the premise that it violated Louisiana's [[segregation]] laws. Blacks then formed the United Defense League, organized a free-ride network so that passengers could avoid using the city buses, and filed suit against the city to desegregate the buses. The Baton Rouge experience was observed by [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]], who wrote that Jemison's "painstaking description of the Baton Rouge experience proved invaluable" to him two years later in the bus boycott in [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]], [[Alabama]].<ref name=bono>The Best of New Orleans.com, June 17, 2003.</ref>
On June 23, 1953, Jemison called off the boycott after the city council passed a new ordinance under which the first-come, first-served, seating system of back-to-front and front-to-back was reinstated, with the first two seats on any bus reserved for white passengers and the back bench left for blacks. Anyone else could sit on any of the rows in the middle. To comply with state segregation laws, blacks and white were prohibited from sitting next to each other within this arrangement.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis53.htm#1953brbb|title=Baton Rouge Bus Boycott|publisher=Civil Rights Movement Veterans|accessdate=September 5, 2010}}</ref> While a number of boycotters had wanted to challenge segregation directly, the majority backed the municipal compromise.<ref name=bono/>
==Defeat in 1956==
LeBlanc was unseated in the 1956 Democratic primary by [[Jack P.F. Gremillion]], the choice of Earl Long, the runaway winner of the governor's race that year. LeBlanc had years earlier taught Gremillion at LSU and claimed that his opponent lacked the capabilities needed for the position of attorney general.<ref name=mherald>"LeBlanc Pledges Segregation Fight," ''Minden Herald','' February 2, 1956, p. 1.</ref>LeBlanc ran in 1956 on the ticket of [[Chep Morrison]] the mayor of [[New Orleans]], who made the first of his three failed gubernatorial bids.<ref>Louisiana Secretary of State, Primary election returns, January 17, 1956.</ref>In the runoff election with Gremillion, LeBlanc pledged a full-fledged fight against racial integration.<ref name=mherald/>
After his tenure as attorney general, LeBlanc was soon elected as a [[judge]] of the 19th Judicial District in East Baton Rouge Parish, a position which he assumed on April 11, 1958.<ref name=chs/> In this capacity in the summer of 1959, LeBlanc signed the long-remembered letter which committed his old rival, Earl Long, to undergo psychiatric treatment for paranoid [[schizophrenia]].<ref name=gbooks/> Long later said that signing the order was the "happiest day" of Judge LeBlanc's life.<ref name=gbooks/>
Judge LeBlanc was also known for imposing stiff penalties and sky-high [[bail]] on civil rights demonstrators who came before his court.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=7idHI9KdCfwC&pg=PA293&lpg=PA293&dq=when+was+sargent+pitcher+the+district+attorney+in+Baton+Rouge%3F&source=bl&ots=9HoIUheuHx&sig=vD_aN0UjREIq5fArw1k0haMoa5o&hl=en&ei=5esKTY2MKsGB8gb446yyDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=when%20was%20sargent%20pitcher%20the%20district%20attorney%20in%20Baton%20Rouge%3F&f=false|author=Adam Fairclough|title=Race and Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972|publisher=Athens, [[Georgia]]: [[University of Georgia]] Press, 1995|page=293}}</ref>w, p. 293|accessdate=December 16, 2010}}</ref>
In December 1965, LeBlanc presided over a death-penalty case in Baton Rouge stemming from the shooting of a convenience store clerk. A [[capital punishment]] watchdog group claimed that the trial was "rife with serious constitutional errors: suppressed mitigating evidence, perjured testimony, and ineffective assistance of counsel." Repeatedly, Judge LeBlanc refused defense requests to delay the trial.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.capitalpunishmentbook.com/?p=234|author=Billy Sinclair|title=A Death Penalty Trial|publisher=capitalpunishmenbook.com|date=1965|accessdate=September 10, 2010}}</ref>
LeBlanc died while still serving as a district judge. He was succeeded by John S. Covington, the appointee of Governor [[John J. McKeithen]].
Though LeBlanc is mentioned in ''Who's Who in America'' in several editions during the 1940s, there is no biographical information included in the national publication, not even his date of birth.
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:LeBlanc, Fred S.}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Attorneys]]
[[Category:Professors]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:Mayors]]
[[Category:Judges]]
[[Category:Democrats]]
[[Category:Catholics]]
[[Category:Catholic Politicians]]