With All Deliberate Speed; J.D. DeBlieux Interview #2

A large portion of the people, particularly in the sound, could not see them as the equal. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about where the fears came from that ran through the legislature at the time that they passed some of the segregationist laws, or maybe not the fears, but maybe their beliefs why they were where they came from. Well, of course, I think it's just something that had grown into the people as a result of the old slavery days, and coming forward and brought up in the fact that the blacks were used mostly as servants. And many of them would look forward to preserving that relationship that possibly could. And therefore, they could not come to the position of treating the blacks as equal. And I think it's going to take many years for some of these people to get rid of that idea.

What do you think has taken Louisiana compared to other states? Why has it taken Louisiana so long to desegregate their schools, do you think? It's for that particular reason of getting rid of that, you might say philosophy or culture that ahead. And of course, it's improving from day to day whenever they're finding that blacks, whenever they get sufficient schooling, sufficient education, can do the same type of jobs that any of the whites and then even superior to some whites and do. You take right now, of course, it's a physical product, but by the same token that shows the built-in, we've got the best athletes in the country now or the blacks as a group. And I've run across a number of blacks. The idea so far is the electoral pursuits that are just as good if not superior to a lot of the whites. And it's based upon the training and education to get.

And if we can see that all of them get all of the people who rather get sufficient education without discrimination, I think we'll have them much better to decide all the way around. It's been said that on certain suits, a certain judge has been responsible for holding back desegregation. That certain laws were passed by certain people to prevent circumvent desegregation. Do you think it was any a small group of people that pulled Louisiana behind or, I mean, can anybody be blamed? Can anyone person be blamed? I don't think you could blame anyone person for it. There's some, I think, during the back, during the 60s, one of the people who helped to preserve the segregation more than probably any other individual was probably Judge Perez at that particular time. And yet, on the other hand, I understood it from his

prayers down there to those blacks who did what he wanted to do. They got well taken care of from a material standpoint. But they were not allowed to exercise any rights and so forth desegregation concern. He did not allow them to go to school with a white screen or thing of that sort. They had to stay in their own particular category. As long as they did that, they were well taken care of. So I've been told. So you wouldn't say that any particular people were to blame and just not in a particular group unless you would refer to the Ku Klux Klan or something of that sort. But you did have a few of the outstanding, when I speak about I say, the more notable leaders in segregation we were at that time, that's a few of those that were supporters of those two individuals with that particular time.

There were a lot more that had that rationale and belief during the 60s than they are now. If you do have some of them, I'm sure that during that period of time, who would continue over now, but they are not years more serious with their segregation ideas as they were back in the 60s. It's a due to a lot now. I remember quite. You were just talking a little bit about how the black schools were less favored when it came to appropriating funds and getting equipment over the white schools. Could you give us a scientific example of that? One evening, we had a meeting in which we had eight of the students who had under the freedom of choice provision of the US Commission

still of the segregation program that had been initiated had transferred from black schools to white schools. And as I recall, I think about three of these students had transferred from McKinley to Baton Rouge High School. And all of the students all except one related to the instances of wearing they'd had been harassed or ostracized or ain't poured on them, kicked his walk down a hole to spit upon by the white students. And after the end of this, one of the teachers asked one of the girls who had transferred from McKinley to Baton Rouge High. If she thought after going through all of that during the past year was worth it, and she stated, yes, she did. She says, for an example, when I was at McKinley, we only had five microscope for the whole class. And she indicated that there were approximately about 20

in the biology class. And she said, when we went to Baton Rouge High School, each student had a microscope. And it showed the difference in the provisions were made for the black schools as compared to the white schools and so forth, providing facilities for a concern. And I think that those situations, if you might say just about going to have a picture now, I believe that those schools are getting approximately the same facilities so that they can all receive sufficient education. And that's one of the things that we have to, in my opinion, is the foremost thing we had to do with reference to desegregation is to provide good educational facilities for all of the students. We do that, and we'll have a much better society. I'll tell you, I'll ask you just one more question. You could summarize the stance that you took those years in the legislature and all the abuse

that you suffered, whether it was worth it. There's worth it for what I took. Oh, yes, I think I made a contribution to providing equal facilities and equal opportunities for all of our citizens. Now, my position was there should be no discrimination. And to me, I don't believe in a quarter system. I think that each individual ought to be respected on its own rights. Now, sometimes in order to force people to grant equal privileges, it might be necessary to have a quarter system. But otherwise, they'll find some way to circumvent the law. And that's the only way that you can keep them from doing this by having a quarter system. But I really believe that everybody should be treated as an individual on its own merits, on dealing equal opportunities with everybody else.

And if we can do that, I think that our society will make much better progress. It's going to take years before that come about, because of past history and cultures and so forth. But it's getting better, in my opinion, from year to year. And maybe in the next 50 years, well, we won't have it in discrimination. We won't have it in discrimination. We won't have it in discrimination. We won't have it in discrimination.

We won't have it in discrimination.