A More Noble Cause: A. P. Tureaud and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Louisiana

by Rachel L. Emanuel, Alexander P. Tureaud

Throughout the decades-long legal battle to end segregation, discrimination, and disfranchisement, attorney Alexander Pierre Tureaud was one of the most influential figures in Louisiana's courts. A More Noble Cause presents both the powerful story of one man's lifelong battle for racial justice and the very personal biography of a black professional and his family in the Jim Crow-era Louisiana.

During a career that spanned more than forty years, A. P. Tureaud was at times the only regularly practicing black attorney in Louisiana. From his base in New Orleans, the civil rights pioneer fought successfully to obtain equal pay for Louisiana's black teachers, to desegregate public accommodations, schools, and buses, and for voting rights of qualified black residents.

Tureaud's work, along with that of dozens of other African American lawyers, formed part of a larger legal battle that eventually overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized racial segregation. This intimate account, based on more than twenty years of research into the attorney's astounding legal and civil rights career as well as his community work, offers the first full-length study of Tureaud. An active organizer of civic and voting leagues, a leader in the NAACP, a national advocate of the Knights of Peter Claver―a fraternal order of black Catholics―and a respected political power broker and social force as a Democrat and member of the Autocrat Club and Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Tureaud worked tirelessly within the state and for all those without equal rights.

Both an engrossing story of a key legal, political, and community figure during Jim Crow-era Louisiana and a revealing look at his personal life during a tumultuous time in American history, A More Noble Cause provides insight into Tureaud's public struggles and personal triumphs, offering readers a candid account of a remarkable champion of racial equality.

328 pages, Hardcover

First published April 25, 2011

Reviews

[Bill Sleeman]

A More Noble Cause: A.P. Tureaud and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Louisiana This is a very good book – I did not have great hopes for this but it proved to be an amazing work. While the focus is primarily on the challenges facing Tread in his home state of Louisiana the authors’ ability to draw out the larger issues of the civil rights battle made it resonant beyond the parochial. Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, Jack Greenberg, Robert Carter, Charles Hamilton Houston all make appearances and through their presence you begin to understand the important role that the A.P. Tread played. While these giants of the civil rights movement appear in this “personal biography” (as the title page calls it) the most moving and most telling figures are those not present after only a few chapters – Tureaud’s sisters. Tureaud, a light skinned Creole was often mistaken for a white man as were his sisters, eventually they chose to ‘pass’ into white society and disappeared from the Tureaud family story. Their absence is felt but their decision is never discussed outright in the Tureaud family.

In one of the most moving passages Alexander P. Tureaud, Jr. relates his experience attempting to integrate LSU. In an odd coincidence this very story was related by Tureaud, Jr. on NPR’s StoryCorps feature almost at the same time that I was reading in this book. Hearing directly from the source was very moving – it is hard to imagine the magnitude of the abuse that A.P. Tureaud, Jr. suffered and the love and support that his father provides during this experience (despite getting his son into the situation in the first place) is beautiful. This remains my favorite part of the book as the love and respect that father and son hold for each other comes through so clearly. Ultimately, this work is more ”personal biography” than it is a history of the Civil Rights movement but it is that combination of stories that makes this book so successful and so informative.