Leander Perez
Encyclopedia
Leander Henry Perez, Sr. (July 16, 1891 – March 19, 1969), 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 Council. He was known for his staunch support of segregation
.
at Baton Rouge, and the Tulane University Law School
in New Orleans. Perez opened a law practice in New Orleans and Plaquemines Parish.
In 1928, Perez allied with Huey Pierce Long, Jr.
, who was elected governor. In 1929, he successfully defended Long in the latter's impeachment trial before the Louisiana state Senate.
Perez became wealthy by subleasing state mineral lands. In 1940, the state Crime Commission investigated Perez at the request of then Governor Sam Houston Jones. In 1943, Jones sent state troopers to Plaquemines Parish to enforce his appointment of an anti-Perez sheriff.
Perez and Jones both came out of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, but whereas Perez had been a Huey Long backer, Jones was staunchly anti-Long. The two later joined forces to support Republican
Barry M. Goldwater for president in 1964. Perez headed "Democrats for Goldwater" in Louisiana.
. Laws were enacted on Perez's fiat and were rubber-stamped by the parish governing councils. Elections under Perez's reign were sometimes blatantly falsified, with voting records appearing in alphabetical order and names of national celebrities such as Babe Ruth
, Charlie Chaplin
, and Herbert Hoover
appearing on the rolls. Perez-endorsed candidates often won with 90 percent or more of the ballots. Those who did appear to vote were intimidated by Perez's enforcers. He sent large tough men into the voting booths to "help" people vote. Many voters were bribed. Perez testified that he bribed voters $2, $5, and $10 to vote his way depending on who they are. Perez took action to suppress African American
s from voting within his domain. Perez said "Negroes are just not equipped to vote. If the Negroes took over the government, we would have a repetition here of what's going on in the Congo."
Starting in 1936, Perez also diverted millions from government funds through illegal land deals. When he was a district attorney, he was the legal adviser to the Plaquemines levee boards. He used this position to negotiate payoffs between corporations he set up and big oil companies that leased the levee board lands for drilling. After Perez's death, the parish government sued his heirs seeking restitution of $82 million in government funds. In 1987, the lawsuit was settled for $12 million.
, and the lieutenant governor
, Bill Dodd, had arged that the state should have accepted the Truman administration offer and that not doing so cost billions in lost revenues over ensuing decades.
In 1952, Perez convinced Lucille May Grace
, the register of state lands, to question the patriotism of Congressman Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr.
"Miss Grace" and Boggs were among ten Democratic gubernatorial candidates that year. She claimed that Boggs had past affiliation with communist-front organizations. The allegations, never proved, worked to sink both of their candidacies. Ultimately, Perez withdrew his backing for "Miss Grace" and threw his primary support to James M. McLemore, the Alexandria
auction-barn owner who ran for governor on a strictly segregationist platform.
Over the course of the next two decades, Perez and Boggs would battle again. In 1961, Perez launched an ill-fated campaign to have Boggs recalled as a congressman for his support of a motion to expand the House Judiciary Committee to include new liberal members. There is no provision in the United States Constitution
for recall of national lawmakers. The committee enlargement had the support of the new President, John F. Kennedy, and was seen as enhancing the likelihood that civil rights bills could then clear that committee. In 1965, Boggs, from the floor of the House, announced his support of the Voting Rights Act. In so doing, Boggs spoke of an "area of Louisiana" where "out of 3,000 Negroes, less than 100 are registered to vote as American citizens." When asked the next day by a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune
if he was referring to Plaquemines Parish, the "stronghold of Leander Perez," Boggs replied: "Yes."
In 1956, Perez did not again support James McLemore in the latter's second campaign for governor but instead endorsed Fred Preaus
of Farmerville
in north Louisiana, the choice of outgoing Governor Robert F. Kennon
. Preaus lost his native Union Parish
and won only in Perez's Plaquemines Parish in a primary in which Earl Long procured an outright majority in his final comeback bid for governor.
In 1959, Perez supported Rainach for governor in the Democratic primary and then switched his backing to James Houston "Jimmie" Davis
in the party runoff, which Davis secured over New Orleans Mayor deLesseps Story Morrison, Sr., a long-time Perez target.
In the 1960 presidential election, Perez was the state finance chairman and a presidential elector for the Louisiana States' Rights Party. On the ticket with him was future Governor David C. Treen
and the flamboyant anticommunist Kent Howard Courtney
. Treen left the party, denounced its national organization as "anti-Semitic," and joined the Republican Party in 1962, when he first ran for Congress against Boggs, with Perez's support. With more than two-thirds of the votes cast, Perez led the States Rights Party electors to victory in 1960 in Plaquemines Parish. The States Rights total in neighboring St. Bernard Parish, however, was barely above the national Democratic total in the parish. The John F. Kennedy
/Lyndon B. Johnson
ticket was hence reduced to one-fifth of the ballots in Plaquemines Parish, and Richard M. Nixon drew only 13.8 percent of the total there.
Three Louisiana State University
scholars described the impressive third-party vote in Louisiana in 1960 as the outgrowth of "anticlericalism, which expresses itself whenever the [church] hierarchy attempts to go against popular political tendencies. It has led to severe conflicts between clergy and laity over issues of desegregation. Perez has certainly capitalized on these sentiments, and his recent excommunication
[from the Catholic Church] has not slowed his activities appreciably. The fact, however, that the church condemns segregation was undoubtedly a decisive factor in Kennedy's [otherwise] success in south Louisiana."
In the 1964 gubernatorial runoff election, Perez worked o nominate John J. McKeithen. In a newspaper advertisement underwritten in part by Perez, the McKeithen campaign criticized McKeithen's opponent, former New Orleans Mayor deLesseps Story Morrison, for having received the "Negro Bloc Vote" in the December 1963 primary election. After McKeithen defeated Morrison, he then toppled the Republican candidate, Charlton Lyons
of Shreveport
.
In 1968, Perez was key organizer for the campaign to place George C. Wallace, former governor of Alabama on the Louisiana general election ballot for U.S. president. He submitted some 150,000 signatures, 50,000 of them from East Baton Rouge Parish, to the office of secretary of state Wade O. Martin, Jr.
A confident Perez declared that "The people of Louisiana have had an acute case of indigestion about what's going on in this country. You've heard it said Wallace is a thorn in the side of the major candidates (Richard Nixon and Hubert H. Humphrey). Well, he's a whole cactus."
, taking a leadership role in the opposition to desegregation, along with nationally recognized figures such as Strom Thurmond
, George Wallace, and Ross Barnett
of Mississippi
. He was a member of the White Citizens Council and an organizer of the white supremacist
Citizens Council of Greater New Orleans. Thereafter, Perez wrote and researched much of the legislation sponsored by Louisiana's Joint Legislative Committee on Segregation.
In defending segregation, Perez said: "Do you know what the Negro is? Animal right out of the jungle. Passion. Welfare. Easy life. That's the Negro."
The American Civil Rights Movement, according to Perez, was the work of "all those Jews who were supposed to have been cremated at Buchenwald and Dachau
but weren't, and Roosevelt allowed two million of them illegal entry
into our country."
Perez controlled the activities of civil rights workers by prohibiting outsiders from entering Plaquemines Parish through his direction of the bayou ferries that were the only way to enter the jurisdiction.
In 1960, while opposing desegregation of local public schools at a New Orleans rally, Perez said: "Don't wait for your daughter to be raped by these Congolese. Don't wait until the burrheads are forced into your schools. Do something about it now." Perez's speech inspired an assault on the school administration building by some two thousand segregationists, who were fought off by police and fire hoses. The mob then went loose in the city, attacking blacks in the streets. When the schools were opened, Perez organized a boycott by white residents, which included threats to whites who allowed their children to attend the desegregated schools. Perez arranged for poor whites to attend without charge a segregated private school, and he helped to establish a whites-only private school in New Orleans.
His legislative ally, E. W. Gravolet
of Pointe à la Hache
, tried to pass grants-in-aid bills to provide state assistance to private schools sprung into existence by desegregation.
announced its plan to desegregate the New Orleans parochial school system for the 1962–1963 school year. Perez led a movement to pressure businesses into firing any whites who allowed their children to attend the newly desegregated Catholic schools. Catholics in St. Bernard Parish boycotted one school, which the Archdiocese kept open without students for four months until it was burned down. In response, Archbishop Joseph Rummel
excommunicated Perez on April 16, 1962. Perez responded by saying the Catholic Church was "being used as a front for clever Jews" and announced that he would form his own church, the "Perezbyterians."
.
Perez also described himself at one point as "a Catholic, but not an Archbishop's Catholic." He eventually reconciled with the church before his death after issuing a retraction and received a requiem mass at Holy Name of Jesus Christ Church at Loyola University in New Orleans. He is interred at his home in Plaquemines Parish. His tomb (shown) is in Metairie Cemetery
in New Orleans.
of the official title of Democratic nominee, thus denying him a place on the Democratic column, the ticket
headed with the traditional rooster emblem. Perez toyed with passing the official Democratic mantle to the Republican Senate candidate Clem S. Clarke, a Shreveport oilman. Only a deal with Governor Earl Kemp Long kept Long's nephew, Russell Long, on the regular Democratic ticket in Louisiana. The result was that Russell Long began a 38-year tenure in the U.S. Senate.
In his last campaign, Perez supported Wallace's American Independent Party. When asked in the summer of 1968 what he and a group of associates had been discussing, he replied: "Richard M. Nixon and other traitors." Though he had supported Goldwater, Perez grew disillusioned with the Republican presidential nominees and flatly drew the line against supporting Nixon in 1968. Perez's former ally Treen, however, supported Nixon's successful presidential campaign.
Judge Perez Drive
, a major thoroughfare in St. Bernard Parish, was named after him until 1999, when officials of that parish decided to distance themselves from Leander Perez's legacy. Judge Perez Drive is now named in honor of the late Melvyn Perez, a long-time judge in St. Bernard Parish.
It should also be noted that in the 1970s, several years after Leander Perez's death, St. Bernard Parish was placed in its own judicial district by the Louisiana legislature.
segment entitled "The Sons of Leander".
In 1996, Perez was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame
in Winnfield
.
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...
political boss
Political boss
A boss, in politics, is a person who wields the power over a particular political region or constituency. Bosses may dictate voting patterns, control appointments, and wield considerable influence in other political processes. They do not necessarily hold public office themselves...
of Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes in southeastern Louisiana
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...
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 Council. He was known for his staunch support of segregation
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
.
Youth education
Perez was born in the small town of Dalcour, on the east bank of Plaquemines Parish, to Roselius E. "Fice" Perez (died 1939) and the former Gertrude Solis (died 1944). He was educated in New Orleans schools, Louisiana State UniversityLouisiana 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...
at Baton Rouge, and the Tulane University Law School
Tulane University Law School
Tulane University Law School is the law school of Tulane University. It is located on Tulane's Uptown campus in New Orleans, Louisiana. Established in 1847, it is the 12th oldest law school in the United States....
in New Orleans. Perez opened a law practice in New Orleans and Plaquemines Parish.
Perez enters Plaquemines Parish politics
In 1916, Perez was defeated as a candidate for state representative. In 1919, he was appointed judge of the 25th Judicial District to fill an unexpired term. In 1920, he won a full term as judge by defeating a local machine run by his intraparty rival John Dymond. He was elected district attorney in 1924 and became involved in a dispute over trapping lands which ended in a shootout known as the "Trappers' War."In 1928, Perez allied with Huey Pierce Long, Jr.
Huey Long
Huey Pierce Long, Jr. , nicknamed The Kingfish, served as the 40th Governor of Louisiana from 1928–1932 and as a U.S. Senator from 1932 to 1935. A Democrat, he was noted for his radical populist policies. Though a backer of Franklin D...
, who was elected governor. In 1929, he successfully defended Long in the latter's impeachment trial before the Louisiana state Senate.
Perez became wealthy by subleasing state mineral lands. In 1940, the state Crime Commission investigated Perez at the request of then Governor Sam Houston Jones. In 1943, Jones sent state troopers to Plaquemines Parish to enforce his appointment of an anti-Perez sheriff.
Perez and Jones both came out of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, but whereas Perez had been a Huey Long backer, Jones was staunchly anti-Long. The two later joined forces to support Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Barry M. Goldwater for president in 1964. Perez headed "Democrats for Goldwater" in Louisiana.
A political machine on the Gulf of Mexico
In 1919, Judge Perez launched a reign of bought elections and strict segregationRacial 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...
. Laws were enacted on Perez's fiat and were rubber-stamped by the parish governing councils. Elections under Perez's reign were sometimes blatantly falsified, with voting records appearing in alphabetical order and names of national celebrities such as Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
, Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, and Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
appearing on the rolls. Perez-endorsed candidates often won with 90 percent or more of the ballots. Those who did appear to vote were intimidated by Perez's enforcers. He sent large tough men into the voting booths to "help" people vote. Many voters were bribed. Perez testified that he bribed voters $2, $5, and $10 to vote his way depending on who they are. Perez took action to suppress 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...
s from voting within his domain. Perez said "Negroes are just not equipped to vote. If the Negroes took over the government, we would have a repetition here of what's going on in the Congo."
Starting in 1936, Perez also diverted millions from government funds through illegal land deals. When he was a district attorney, he was the legal adviser to the Plaquemines levee boards. He used this position to negotiate payoffs between corporations he set up and big oil companies that leased the levee board lands for drilling. After Perez's death, the parish government sued his heirs seeking restitution of $82 million in government funds. In 1987, the lawsuit was settled for $12 million.
Political kingmaker
In 1948, Perez headed the Thurmond presidential campaign in Louisiana; and after the failure of the Dixiecrat movement, he unsuccessfully tried to keep the party alive, even as Thurmond returned temporarily to the Democratic Party. Earl Long, however, supported Truman, not Thurmond, but Long deferred to Perez regarding the Louisiana tidelands issue. Perez urged Long to reject the Truman administration's proposal which would have greatly enhanced state revenues and to instead seek an even better arrangement before the United States Supreme Court, an argument that proved illusory. The Louisiana Attorney General, Bolivar Edwards Kemp, Jr.Bolivar Edwards Kemp, Jr.
Bolivar Edwards Kemp, Jr. , was the Democratic attorney general of the U.S. state of Louisiana from 1948–1952 during the administration of Governor Earl Kemp Long. He was allied with the Long faction in state politics....
, and the lieutenant governor
Lieutenant governor
A lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...
, Bill Dodd, had arged that the state should have accepted the Truman administration offer and that not doing so cost billions in lost revenues over ensuing decades.
In 1952, Perez convinced Lucille May Grace
Lucille May Grace
Lucille May Grace, a.k.a. Mrs. Fred Columbus Dent, Sr., , was the first woman to attain statewide elected office in Louisiana. A Democrat, "Miss Grace," as she preferred to be called, became Register of the State Land Office in 1931 on appointment of Governor Huey Pierce Long, Jr...
, the register of state lands, to question the patriotism of Congressman Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr.
Hale Boggs
Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. , was an American Democratic politician and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Orleans, Louisiana...
"Miss Grace" and Boggs were among ten Democratic gubernatorial candidates that year. She claimed that Boggs had past affiliation with communist-front organizations. The allegations, never proved, worked to sink both of their candidacies. Ultimately, Perez withdrew his backing for "Miss Grace" and threw his primary support to James M. McLemore, the Alexandria
Alexandria, Louisiana
Alexandria is a city in and the parish seat of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies on the south bank of the Red River in almost the exact geographic center of the state. It is the principal city of the Alexandria metropolitan area which encompasses all of Rapides and Grant parishes....
auction-barn owner who ran for governor on a strictly segregationist platform.
Over the course of the next two decades, Perez and Boggs would battle again. In 1961, Perez launched an ill-fated campaign to have Boggs recalled as a congressman for his support of a motion to expand the House Judiciary Committee to include new liberal members. There is no provision in the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
for recall of national lawmakers. The committee enlargement had the support of the new President, John F. Kennedy, and was seen as enhancing the likelihood that civil rights bills could then clear that committee. In 1965, Boggs, from the floor of the House, announced his support of the Voting Rights Act. In so doing, Boggs spoke of an "area of Louisiana" where "out of 3,000 Negroes, less than 100 are registered to vote as American citizens." When asked the next day by a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune
New Orleans Times-Picayune
The Times-Picayune is a daily newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.-History:Established as The Picayune in 1837 by Francis Lumsden and George Wilkins Kendall, the paper's initial price was one picayune—a Spanish coin equivalent to 6¼¢ .Under Eliza Jane Nicholson, who inherited the...
if he was referring to Plaquemines Parish, the "stronghold of Leander Perez," Boggs replied: "Yes."
In 1956, Perez did not again support James McLemore in the latter's second campaign for governor but instead endorsed Fred Preaus
Fred Preaus
Frederick T. Preaus, known as Fred Preaus , was a businessman and politician in the U.S. state of Louisiana, a native of Farmerville, the seat of Union Parish near the Arkansas state line...
of Farmerville
Farmerville, Louisiana
Farmerville is a town in and the parish seat of Union Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 3,808 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Monroe Metropolitan Statistical Area...
in north Louisiana, the choice of outgoing Governor Robert F. Kennon
Robert F. Kennon
Robert Floyd Kennon, Sr., known as Bob Kennon , was the 48th Governor of Louisiana, serving from 1952-1956. He failed to win a second non-consecutive term in the 1963 Democratic primary....
. Preaus lost his native Union Parish
Union Parish, Louisiana
Union Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Farmerville....
and won only in Perez's Plaquemines Parish in a primary in which Earl Long procured an outright majority in his final comeback bid for governor.
In 1959, Perez supported Rainach for governor in the Democratic primary and then switched his backing to James Houston "Jimmie" Davis
Jimmie Davis
James Houston Davis , better known as Jimmie Davis, was a noted singer of both sacred and popular songs who served two nonconsecutive terms as the 47th Governor of Louisiana...
in the party runoff, which Davis secured over New Orleans Mayor deLesseps Story Morrison, Sr., a long-time Perez target.
In the 1960 presidential election, Perez was the state finance chairman and a presidential elector for the Louisiana States' Rights Party. On the ticket with him was future Governor David C. Treen
David C. Treen
David Conner "Dave" Treen, Sr. , was an American attorney and politician from Mandeville, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana – the first Republican Governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana since Reconstruction. He was the first Republican in modern times to have served in the U.S...
and the flamboyant anticommunist Kent Howard Courtney
Kent Courtney
Kent Harbinson Courtney was a leading figure in the "Radical Right" of American politics from the 1950s to the 1970s. Courtney was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, but his family moved to New Orleans, when he was a young child...
. Treen left the party, denounced its national organization as "anti-Semitic," and joined the Republican Party in 1962, when he first ran for Congress against Boggs, with Perez's support. With more than two-thirds of the votes cast, Perez led the States Rights Party electors to victory in 1960 in Plaquemines Parish. The States Rights total in neighboring St. Bernard Parish, however, was barely above the national Democratic total in the parish. The John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
/Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
ticket was hence reduced to one-fifth of the ballots in Plaquemines Parish, and Richard M. Nixon drew only 13.8 percent of the total there.
Three 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...
scholars described the impressive third-party vote in Louisiana in 1960 as the outgrowth of "anticlericalism, which expresses itself whenever the [church] hierarchy attempts to go against popular political tendencies. It has led to severe conflicts between clergy and laity over issues of desegregation. Perez has certainly capitalized on these sentiments, and his recent excommunication
Excommunication
Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend or limit membership in a religious community. The word means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
[from the Catholic Church] has not slowed his activities appreciably. The fact, however, that the church condemns segregation was undoubtedly a decisive factor in Kennedy's [otherwise] success in south Louisiana."
In the 1964 gubernatorial runoff election, Perez worked o nominate John J. McKeithen. In a newspaper advertisement underwritten in part by Perez, the McKeithen campaign criticized McKeithen's opponent, former New Orleans Mayor deLesseps Story Morrison, for having received the "Negro Bloc Vote" in the December 1963 primary election. After McKeithen defeated Morrison, he then toppled the Republican candidate, Charlton Lyons
Charlton Lyons
Charlton Havard Lyons, Sr., also known as Big Papa Lyons , was a Shreveport oilman who in 1964 waged the first determined Republican bid for the Louisiana governorship since Reconstruction. Lyons also made a strong but losing bid for the United States House of Representatives in a special election...
of Shreveport
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....
.
In 1968, Perez was key organizer for the campaign to place George C. Wallace, former governor of Alabama on the Louisiana general election ballot for U.S. president. He submitted some 150,000 signatures, 50,000 of them from East Baton Rouge Parish, to the office of secretary of state Wade O. Martin, Jr.
Wade O. Martin, Jr.
Wade Omer Martin, Jr. was the Democratic Secretary of State of Louisiana under five governors, having served from 1944 to 1976...
A confident Perez declared that "The people of Louisiana have had an acute case of indigestion about what's going on in this country. You've heard it said Wallace is a thorn in the side of the major candidates (Richard Nixon and Hubert H. Humphrey). Well, he's a whole cactus."
Segregationist to the core
In the 1950s and 1960s, Perez gained attention as a nationally prominent opponent of desegregationDesegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...
, taking a leadership role in the opposition to desegregation, along with nationally recognized figures such as 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...
, George Wallace, and Ross Barnett
Ross Barnett
Ross Robert Barnett was the governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. He was a States' Rights Democrat.- Early life :...
of 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...
. He was a member of the White Citizens Council and an organizer of the white supremacist
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
Citizens Council of Greater New Orleans. Thereafter, Perez wrote and researched much of the legislation sponsored by Louisiana's Joint Legislative Committee on Segregation.
In defending segregation, Perez said: "Do you know what the Negro is? Animal right out of the jungle. Passion. Welfare. Easy life. That's the Negro."
The American Civil Rights Movement, according to Perez, was the work of "all those Jews who were supposed to have been cremated at Buchenwald and Dachau
Dachau
Dachau is a town in Upper Bavaria, in the southern part of Germany. It is a major district town—a Große Kreisstadt—of the administrative region of Upper Bavaria, about 20 km north-west of Munich. It is now a popular residential area for people working in Munich with roughly 40,000 inhabitants...
but weren't, and Roosevelt allowed two million of them illegal entry
Illegal entry
Illegal entry is the act of foreign nationals arriving in or crossing the borders into a country in violation of its immigration law.Migrants from nations that do not have automatic visa agreements, or who would not otherwise qualify for a visa, often cross the borders illegally in some areas like...
into our country."
Perez controlled the activities of civil rights workers by prohibiting outsiders from entering Plaquemines Parish through his direction of the bayou ferries that were the only way to enter the jurisdiction.
In 1960, while opposing desegregation of local public schools at a New Orleans rally, Perez said: "Don't wait for your daughter to be raped by these Congolese. Don't wait until the burrheads are forced into your schools. Do something about it now." Perez's speech inspired an assault on the school administration building by some two thousand segregationists, who were fought off by police and fire hoses. The mob then went loose in the city, attacking blacks in the streets. When the schools were opened, Perez organized a boycott by white residents, which included threats to whites who allowed their children to attend the desegregated schools. Perez arranged for poor whites to attend without charge a segregated private school, and he helped to establish a whites-only private school in New Orleans.
His legislative ally, E. W. Gravolet
E. W. Gravolet
Ezekiel Winnfield Kelly Gravolet, Jr., usually known as E. W. Gravolet or E. W. "Kelly" Gravolet , was a businessman from Pointe a la Hache, Louisiana, who served in both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature from 1948 until his death at the age of forty-nine.Gravolet was the son of E. W...
of Pointe à la Hache
Pointe a la Hache, Louisiana
Pointe à la Hache is an unincorporated village and place in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, United States.Located on the east bank of the Mississippi River, the village has been the seat for Plaquemines Parish since the formation of the parish....
, tried to pass grants-in-aid bills to provide state assistance to private schools sprung into existence by desegregation.
Perez and the Catholic Church
In the spring of 1962, the Archdiocese of New OrleansRoman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, officially in Latin Archidioecesis Novae Aureliae, is an ecclesiastical division of the Roman Catholic Church administered from New Orleans, Louisiana...
announced its plan to desegregate the New Orleans parochial school system for the 1962–1963 school year. Perez led a movement to pressure businesses into firing any whites who allowed their children to attend the newly desegregated Catholic schools. Catholics in St. Bernard Parish boycotted one school, which the Archdiocese kept open without students for four months until it was burned down. In response, Archbishop Joseph Rummel
Joseph Rummel
Joseph Francis Rummel was bishop of the Diocese of Omaha, Nebraska and Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans Joseph Francis Rummel (October 14, 1876, Steinmauern, Baden - November 8, 1964, New Orleans, Louisiana) was bishop of the Diocese of Omaha, Nebraska (Mar. 30, 1928 - Mar. 9, 1935)...
excommunicated Perez on April 16, 1962. Perez responded by saying the Catholic Church was "being used as a front for clever Jews" and announced that he would form his own church, the "Perezbyterians."
.
Perez also described himself at one point as "a Catholic, but not an Archbishop's Catholic." He eventually reconciled with the church before his death after issuing a retraction and received a requiem mass at Holy Name of Jesus Christ Church at Loyola University in New Orleans. He is interred at his home in Plaquemines Parish. His tomb (shown) is in Metairie Cemetery
Metairie Cemetery
Metairie Cemetery is a cemetery in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The name has caused some people to mistakenly presume that the cemetery is located in Metairie, Louisiana, but it is located within the New Orleans city limits, on Metairie Road .-History:This site was previously a horse...
in New Orleans.
Later political activities
Perez had once chaired the powerful Louisiana Democratic State Central Committee, in which capacity he threatened to deprive senatorial candidate Russell B. LongRussell B. Long
Russell Billiu Long was an American Democratic politician and United States Senator from Louisiana from 1948 until 1987.-Early life:...
of the official title of Democratic nominee, thus denying him a place on the Democratic column, the ticket
Ticket (election)
A ticket refers to a single election choice which fills more than one political office or seat. For example, in the U.S., the candidates for President and Vice President run on the same "ticket", because they are elected together on a single ballot question rather than separately.A ticket can also...
headed with the traditional rooster emblem. Perez toyed with passing the official Democratic mantle to the Republican Senate candidate Clem S. Clarke, a Shreveport oilman. Only a deal with Governor Earl Kemp Long kept Long's nephew, Russell Long, on the regular Democratic ticket in Louisiana. The result was that Russell Long began a 38-year tenure in the U.S. Senate.
In his last campaign, Perez supported Wallace's American Independent Party. When asked in the summer of 1968 what he and a group of associates had been discussing, he replied: "Richard M. Nixon and other traitors." Though he had supported Goldwater, Perez grew disillusioned with the Republican presidential nominees and flatly drew the line against supporting Nixon in 1968. Perez's former ally Treen, however, supported Nixon's successful presidential campaign.
Judge Perez Drive
Judge Perez Drive
Judge Perez Drive is a major, four-lane thoroughfare located in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. The road was originally named Goodchildren Drive, but was renamed in 1972 for former political boss of St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes, Judge Leander Perez . However, in the late 1990s, St...
, a major thoroughfare in St. Bernard Parish, was named after him until 1999, when officials of that parish decided to distance themselves from Leander Perez's legacy. Judge Perez Drive is now named in honor of the late Melvyn Perez, a long-time judge in St. Bernard Parish.
It should also be noted that in the 1970s, several years after Leander Perez's death, St. Bernard Parish was placed in its own judicial district by the Louisiana legislature.
Family
Perez had ten brothers and sisters. In 1917, Perez married the former Agnes Octave Chalin. They had four children http://files.usgwarchives.org/la/plaquemines/obits/perez.txt, their sons, Leander H. Perez, Jr. (1920–1988), who followed his father as district attorney in 1960, and Chalin O. Perez (1923–2003), who succeeded his father as president of the Plaquemines council in 1967. They were unable to continue their father's stern reign over the two lower river parishes because of their own personal differences and because of interference from the FBI. Feuding between the brothers in the late 1970s gave political opponents an opening and the local elections of 1980 saw the first significant decline of Perez family power. The feud was the subject of a 60 Minutes60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
segment entitled "The Sons of Leander".
In 1996, Perez was posthumously 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 ...
.
Sources
- Boulard, Garry, The Big Lie—Hale Boggs, Lucille May Grace and Leander Perez in 1951 (Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing, 2001).
- Jeansonne, Glen. Leander Perez: Boss of the Delta; Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1977
- Loewen, James W. Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong New York: The New Press, 1999): Chapter 47: "Let Us Now Praise Famous Thieves."
- http://www.cityofwinnfield.com/museum.html
- "Leander Henry Perez", A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. 2 (1988), p. 641
- The Canary Islanders in Louisiana (Film of Manuel Mora Morales, 2006)