T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History

 

ABSTRACT

 

INTERVIEWEE NAME:  Hamilton, Leo C.                                                            #4700.0322   

 

IDENTIFICATION:  [1951-    ]  LSU Alumni, Baton Rouge attorney

 

INTERVIEWER: Hebert, Mary J.

 

PROJECT/CLASS/SERIES: LSU History, Civil Rights Movement

 

INTERVIEW DATE(S): 21 August 1993, 11 September 1993

 

ABSTRACT:

 

Tape 453:

 

Family background in Baton Rouge, La; parents attend McKinley High School; importance of education to parents; father's involvement in civil rights movement; Baton Rouge civil rights leaders; worked odd jobs as teenager; attended segregated elementary and junior high schools; enrolled in desegregated Lee High; isolated from black community because attended Lee High; abused by white students at Lee High; ten year class reunion and changed attitudes of white students; camaraderie among black students at Lee High; discrimination in grading; teachers ignored abuse; decision to pursue career in law; guidance counselors at Lee High; rivalry between black neighborhoods; reasons for not attending Southern; white students at LSU; camaraderie among black students at LSU; meekness of Martin Luther King Action Movement; some believed no place for whites in the movement; lack of radicalism at LSU; Black Power in Baton Rouge; H. Rap Brown; fear by some blacks that integration would hurt black community; attempts by black ministers to control movement; organization and goals of Harambe; racism of white fraternities; Chancellor Cecil Taylor; sit-in in Taylor's office; Dean James Reddoch; disagreements between black students; members of Harambe; Black Cultural Center versus Black Student Union

 

Tape 471

 

Social nature of Harambe; use of St. Albans and Methodist Center for meetings; activist ministers; fight against white fraternities reserving seats at football games; urging university to recruit black athletes; racism of Kentucky basketball coach Adolph Rupp; African American students felt like outsiders; sit-in in Chancellors office in 1971; Dean James Reddoch; integrated student housing; black cultural awareness; Southern students' animosity for LSU; Southern University; Southern Riots; division within Harambe over how to protest riot; Ted Schirmer and Progressive Students' Alliance; March to state capitol after Southern riots; Black Muslims; Harambe's community outreach program; racism of Baton Rouge and Campus Police; political activism of Harambe; David Duke; SGA president Kerry Pourciau and problems getting Harambe's support; death of Harambe; race relations at LSU in the 1990s; working for state government; specialty labor law; establishing own firm; merger with Breazeale, Sachse, and Wilson; law school  professors

 

TAPES: T 453, T 471, T 472

 

TOTAL PLAYING TIME: T453, 90 min.; T471, 90 min.; T472, 5 min.

 

# PAGES INDEX/TRANSCRIPT: 138

 

 

RESTRICTIONS: None