Camille Gravel
Encyclopedia
Camille Francis Gravel, Jr. (August 10, 1915—December 23, 2005), was a Louisiana
, Democratic
politician.
Gravel spent much time and money supporting the Roman Catholic Church
. Pope
Pius XII honored Gravel with the "Order of St. Gregory" for his outstanding service to the church.
in South Bend, Indiana
. He attended law school at Louisiana State University
in Baton Rouge and The Catholic University of America
in Washington, D.C.
, from 1937–1939, but once explained that he just could not stick to the books. At a time when a law degree was not required to become a lawyer
, Gravel "read for the law" and passed the bar exam in 1940.
Gravel introduced Louis Berry, the first African American
lawyer to have been admitted to the Alexandria Bar Association. Berry said that no other white lawyer in Alexandria would introduce him.
activist who was derided by Louisiana segregationist
Democrats in the 1950s as an "integrationist." He attracted national attention when he led the loyal Louisiana Democratic delegation to the 1948 national convention in Philadelphia, when delegates from Mississippi
and Alabama
walked out in protest of a civil rights
plank in the party platform
supported by the party nominee President Harry S. Truman
.
Oddly, Gravel in the fall of 1948 was the elector for the Eighth Congressional District
committed to then Governor
Strom Thurmond
, the official Democratic presidential nominee in Louisiana, running regionally on a States Rights' Party ticket against Truman and Governor
Thomas E. Dewey of New York
. Another Thurmond elector was Leander Perez
, Gravel's longtime intraparty rival from Plaquemines Parish
.
In 1952, Gravel was again a Democratic Party elector committeed to Governor
Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois
. The Stevenson-John Sparkman
slate won in Louisiana that year.
By the late 1950s, when the state's political war cry was segregation
, Gravel was one of the prominent white political figures who did not join the segregationist forces. "Purely as a moral proposition, I think segregation is wrong," he said in 1959.
, and Edwin Washington Edwards.
Earl Long had selected Gravel to run for state attorney general
in that same election, but the job paid little and Gravel, who was rearing a large family, turned down the offer.
In Edwards' first two terms as governor most of his proposed legislation was drafted by Gravel. Gravel returned as Edwards' counsel for his third term starting in 1984, but when Edwards was indicted for the first time on federal racketeering charges in 1985, Gravel left the governor's staff to work as his co-defense counsel. Gravel also served on Edwards' defense teams when he was convicted of racketeering in 2000.
In 1979, Gravel succeeded in obtaining the acquittal of former Congressman Otto E. Passman
from charges of fraud, conspiracy, accepting an illegal gratuity, and tax evasion
associated with the allegation that he had received $213,000 in illegal gifts from the South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park in a scandal called Koreagate
.
commissioner James H. "Jim" Brown recalled a story as to how Gravel became friends with the Kennedys:
al Convention of 1973.
in Alexandria two days before Christmas. He had been residing there for several months. He had undergone heart
valve replacement surgery eleven months earlier in St. Frances Cabrini Hospital
in Alexandria. He came out of surgery in a coma. Within three days of the surgery, his kidneys began to fail. Doctors performed a second surgery to determine why his kidneys were failing. They opened him back up and found a blood clot in which they removed. After coming out of the coma, doctors determined he had also suffered a stroke.
Gravel's funeral mass was conducted on December 27, 2005, at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Alexandria.
In 1995, Gravel was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame
in Winnfield
.
Starting in 1976 and continuing through 1979, Camille Gravel, Jr. worked with Robert G. Vernon and Duane Yates to form the Louisiana Music Commission. This legislation has served as the model for many American states for it holds the distinction of being the first "stand-alone" Music Commission in the United States.
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
politician.
Gravel spent much time and money supporting the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
. Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
Pius XII honored Gravel with the "Order of St. Gregory" for his outstanding service to the church.
Education
Gravel graduated in 1935 from the University of Notre DameUniversity of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
in South Bend, Indiana
South Bend, Indiana
The city of South Bend is the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total of 101,168 residents; its Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 316,663...
. He attended law school at Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
in Baton Rouge and The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, from 1937–1939, but once explained that he just could not stick to the books. At a time when a law degree was not required to become a lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, Gravel "read for the law" and passed the bar exam in 1940.
Gravel introduced Louis Berry, the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
lawyer to have been admitted to the Alexandria Bar Association. Berry said that no other white lawyer in Alexandria would introduce him.
The 1948 Democratic Convention
Gravel was an early civil rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activist who was derided by Louisiana segregationist
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
Democrats in the 1950s as an "integrationist." He attracted national attention when he led the loyal Louisiana Democratic delegation to the 1948 national convention in Philadelphia, when delegates from Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
and Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
walked out in protest of a civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
plank in the party platform
Party platform
A party platform, or platform sometimes also referred to as a manifesto, is a list of the actions which a political party, individual candidate, or other organization supports in order to appeal to the general public for the purpose of having said peoples' candidates voted into political office or...
supported by the party nominee President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
.
Oddly, Gravel in the fall of 1948 was the elector for the Eighth Congressional District
Louisiana's 8th congressional district
Louisiana's 8th congressional district is a defunct Congressional district and no longer exists after Louisiana lost its eighth Congressional seat in the 1990 U. S. Census. For its entire existence, it was based in Alexandria and included much of the north-central part of the state.-List of...
committed to then Governor
Governor of South Carolina
The Governor of the State of South Carolina is the head of state for the State of South Carolina. Under the South Carolina Constitution, the Governor is also the head of government, serving as the chief executive of the South Carolina executive branch. The Governor is the ex officio...
Strom Thurmond
Strom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...
, the official Democratic presidential nominee in Louisiana, running regionally on a States Rights' Party ticket against Truman and Governor
Governor of New York
The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...
Thomas E. Dewey of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Another Thurmond elector was Leander Perez
Leander Perez
Leander Henry Perez, Sr. , was the Democratic political boss of Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes in southeastern Louisiana during the middle third of the 20th century. Officially, he served as a district judge, later as district attorney, and as president of the Plaquemines Parish Commission...
, Gravel's longtime intraparty rival from Plaquemines Parish
Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana
Plaquemines Parish is the parish with the most combined land and water area in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Pointe à la Hache...
.
In 1952, Gravel was again a Democratic Party elector committeed to Governor
Governor of Illinois
The Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state....
Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. The Stevenson-John Sparkman
John Sparkman
John Jackson Sparkman was an American politician from the state of Alabama. A conservative Southern Democrat, Sparkman served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate from 1937 until 1979. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in...
slate won in Louisiana that year.
By the late 1950s, when the state's political war cry was segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, Gravel was one of the prominent white political figures who did not join the segregationist forces. "Purely as a moral proposition, I think segregation is wrong," he said in 1959.
Advisor to three governors
A staunch Democrat who worked in the national party organization and backed Adlai Stevenson ticket in Louisiana in 1952 and 1956, Gravel was a confidant and adviser to Governors Earl Long, John McKeithenJohn McKeithen
John Julian McKeithen was the 49th Governor of Louisiana, serving from 1964 to 1972. A Democrat from the town of Columbia, he was the first governor of his state in the twentieth century to serve two consecutive terms...
, and Edwin Washington Edwards.
Earl Long had selected Gravel to run for state attorney general
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
in that same election, but the job paid little and Gravel, who was rearing a large family, turned down the offer.
In Edwards' first two terms as governor most of his proposed legislation was drafted by Gravel. Gravel returned as Edwards' counsel for his third term starting in 1984, but when Edwards was indicted for the first time on federal racketeering charges in 1985, Gravel left the governor's staff to work as his co-defense counsel. Gravel also served on Edwards' defense teams when he was convicted of racketeering in 2000.
In 1979, Gravel succeeded in obtaining the acquittal of former Congressman Otto E. Passman
Otto Passman
Otto Ernest Passman was a conservative Democratic congressman from Monroe in northeastern Louisiana, who served from 1947 to 1977. He is primarily remembered for his detailed knowledge and mostly opposition to foreign aid...
from charges of fraud, conspiracy, accepting an illegal gratuity, and tax evasion
Tax evasion
Tax evasion is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means. Tax evasion usually entails taxpayers deliberately misrepresenting or concealing the true state of their affairs to the tax authorities to reduce their tax liability,...
associated with the allegation that he had received $213,000 in illegal gifts from the South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park in a scandal called Koreagate
Koreagate
"Koreagate" was an American political scandal in 1976 involving South Korean political figures seeking influence from 10 Democratic members of Congress. An immediate goal of the scandal seems to have been reversing President Richard Nixon's decision to withdraw troops from South Korea...
.
Friendship with the Kennedy family
Former Louisiana state senator, gubernatorial candidate, secretary of state, and insuranceInsurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
commissioner James H. "Jim" Brown recalled a story as to how Gravel became friends with the Kennedys:
Louisiana Constitutional Convention, 1973
Jim Brown also noted the pivotal role that Gravel played in the Louisiana ConstitutionLouisiana Constitution
The Constitution of the State of Louisiana is the cornerstone of Louisiana state law ensuring the rights of individuals, describing the distribution and power of state officials and local government, establishes the state and city civil service systems, creates and defines the operation of a state...
al Convention of 1973.
Death and funeral mass in Alexandria
Gravel died at the age of ninety in the Naomi Heights Nursing HomeNursing home
A nursing home, convalescent home, skilled nursing unit , care home, rest home, or old people's home provides a type of care of residents: it is a place of residence for people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living...
in Alexandria two days before Christmas. He had been residing there for several months. He had undergone heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
valve replacement surgery eleven months earlier in St. Frances Cabrini Hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
in Alexandria. He came out of surgery in a coma. Within three days of the surgery, his kidneys began to fail. Doctors performed a second surgery to determine why his kidneys were failing. They opened him back up and found a blood clot in which they removed. After coming out of the coma, doctors determined he had also suffered a stroke.
Gravel's funeral mass was conducted on December 27, 2005, at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Alexandria.
Gravel's legacy
Jim Brown said that Gravel's influence on the legal profession and the political landscape of the state was "overwhelming. He has been, for many years, hands down one of the best criminal lawyers in the country."In 1995, Gravel was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame
Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame
The Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield, Louisiana, highlights the careers of more than a hundred of the state’s leading politicians and political journalists. Because three governors, Huey P. Long, Jr., Oscar K...
in Winnfield
Winnfield, Louisiana
Winnfield is a city in and the parish seat of Winn Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 5,749 at the 2000 census. It has long been associated with the Long faction of the Louisiana Democratic Party and was home to three governors of Louisiana.-Geography:Winnfield is located at ...
.
Starting in 1976 and continuing through 1979, Camille Gravel, Jr. worked with Robert G. Vernon and Duane Yates to form the Louisiana Music Commission. This legislation has served as the model for many American states for it holds the distinction of being the first "stand-alone" Music Commission in the United States.