T. Harry
Williams Center for Oral History Collection
INTERVIEWEE
NAME:
Jack Paul Faustin Gremillion COLLECTION: 4700.0532
IDENTIFICATION: [1920- ] World War II Veteran and Former
Louisiana Attorney General
INTERVIEWER: Mary Hebert
PROJECT: World War II
and Louisiana State History
DATES: April 26 1995,
May 17 1995; October 17 1995; January 31 1996; May 24, 1996.
FOCUS
DATES:
1930's-1960's
ABSTRACT:
T
770
Campaigning
with Earl Long; Date and Place of birth; attending St. Joseph's Commercial
Institute in Donaldsonville; participation in sports during highschool; his
father's career; siblings; educational background of his parents; attending
LSU; working while attending LSU; the LSU boxing team and the formation of the
Baton Rouge Athletic Club; ROTC; working at the Solvay plant; getting a law
degree under Fred LaBlanc his father's political activities; practicing law and
working at the Solvay plant; starting his law practice; getting involved in
politics in Baton Rouge; being drafted for World War II; getting married;
collecting back taxes and the use of tokens to pay taxes; accompanying his
mother when Huey Long would invite her for coffee on the train; LSU football
during the Huey Long days; Colonel Middleton as commandant of the LSU cadets;
his reaction to being drafted; becoming an infantry officer; training; assigned
to the 106th Infantry Division; assignment as a replacement officer;
arriving in England; Omaha Beach; assigned to the Fifth Infantry Division;
fighting in the hedgerows; wounded while on a probing mission; details of being
wounded and his determinism to survive; description of combat; his hospital
stay and aspects of his treatment; writing a letter to his wife to inform her
of the situation.
T
771
ROTC
at LSU; being a freshman and hazing; attending football games as a group;
working at the Solvay plant;
involvement in union activity while at the Solvay plant; involvement
with the American Legion; establishment of the predominantly African-American
Bonnette Harrison Post of the American Legion; General Wainwright speaking at
the Nicholson Post of the American Legion; the use of voting machines;
reappointment and representatives in the House of Representatives; influence of
the Democratic Party in Louisiana; campaign manager for Jimmy Noe in his run
for Governor; taxes and the use of tokens as a campaign issue.
T
802
Pea
Patch Politics; Bill Dodd and his involvement with the 1955 Long and Fraser
political ticket; creating the voting machine board; how Gremillion became
involved with the Long and Fraser ticket; being an assistant district attorney
in Baton Rouge; getting the call from Earl Long to qualify for attorney
general; starting campaigning; memories of campaigning with Earl Long; making
campaign speeches; campaigning with Jimmie Davis; campaigning with McKeithern;
Bob Kennon and the Eisenhower administration; running against Fred LaBlanc for
attorney general; Earl Long's problems speaking in front of televison cameras.
T
803
Getting
the chair Huey Long used when he practiced law in Shreveport; getting a coat
rack from Earl Long's sisters; memories of a visit to Earl Long at the Pea
Patch; memories of hearing the news of Earl Long's death.
T
929
Involvement
with the desegregation case of the city park golf course; Acie Belton; the
African-American voting block; Gremillion's involvement with the Tidelands
case; John Madden; stopping oil production in Louisiana and suing the oil
companies as part of the Tidelands case; involvement of Scott Wilkinson, Austin
Lewis, hearing in front of the Supreme
Court; working with the Mineral Board in Louisiana; the history of the
Tidelands litigation; in actions and interference of Leander Prez in the
Tidelands case; Prez's involvement with Governor Davis in a effort to replace
Gremillion as the lawyer for the Mineral Board and Tidelands case; involvement
of McKeithen, involvement of Dean Hebert and Victor Saxy; Louisiana's receiving
37 million dollars in payment from the United States Government; public
sentiment; case with Texas over the oil revenues in the Sabine River.
T
959
NAACP
case; segregation cases that the office of the attorney general handled; the
NAACP and the desegregation of the New Orleans schools; Tureaud and his
involvement with the NAACP cases; public opinions for and against segregation;
Skelly Wright; the sovereignty commission; Willy Rainach; the political race
between Jimmie Davis and Chep Morrison; the Citizens' Council of Louisiana and
the Jefferson Club; voter purges; court of appeals incident; Edwin F. (Chug)
Hunter; the Congress of Racial Equality and voter registration; being made a
scapegoat because of his involvement with segregation cases; Azie Young; voting
for Kennedy as a member of the electoral college; trying to get Earl Long on
televison; individuals who helped in the Tidelands case;
TAPES:
770;
771; 802; 803; 929; 959. TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 7.5
Hours
#
PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 213.
OTHER
MATERIALS: Interviewer
Release Forms; Interviewee Release Forms; Photograph Copy Release Forms; Proper
Name Lists; Correspondence.
RESTRICTIONS: None.