Law Center News
Historic Round-table Discussion part of SULC event celebrating SU’s 136th Founders’ Day
Determination, perseverance, dedication, and professionalism were consistently noted as attributes of three men whose untiring and courageous efforts resulted in opening opportunities for legal education to African Americans in the state of Louisiana.
The Southern University Law Center (SULC) celebrates “2016: The Year of Charles J. Hatfield III,” acknowledging that Hatfield’s bold act in writing a letter in January 1946 requesting admission to the only state legal education program was the catalyst for the founding of this institution of access and opportunity.
Hatfield engaged civil rights attorney A. P. Tureaud Sr. to file a lawsuit on his behalf and Vanue B. Lacour Sr. was a member of the original faculty for the Southern University School of Law.
On March 9 at the SULC’s Southern University Founders’ Day program, the sons of these individuals who had significant roles in the history of legal education in the State of Louisiana shared their insights about their fathers. Mayor-president Melvin “Kip” Holden, an SULC graduate, also proclaimed March 9 “Charles J. Hatfield III Day” in Baton Rouge.
Charles J. Hatfield IV, son of the late Hatfield III and Beulah Hatfield; Vanue B. Lacour Jr., son of the late Lacour Sr. and the late Arthemise Wilson Lacour; and A. P. Tureaud Sr., son of the late Tureaud Sr. and the late Eugenie Dejoie Tureaud participated in a round-table discussion seeking to enlighten today’s audience about a significant period in the history of legal education in this state.
SULC alumni radio/television talk show hosts, Taryn Branson, ’14; Nicole Sheppard, ’05; and Arthur R. Thomas, ’76, fielded questions to the Hatfield, Lacour, and Tureaud, who shared insights about their fathers personal and professional demeanor; as well as career achievements and challenges.
Hatfield, Lacour, and Tureaud all were viewed as men of integrity and individuals who wanted to break down the barrier of segregation.
Charles J. Hatfield IV
Hatfield IV said that his father was also a stanch believer in “fighting injustice wherever he found it.”
“You don’t always appreciate what your parents do in their careers when you are a youngster,” admitted Hatfield, who was three years old at the time his father pursued enrollment in law studies. Now at the age of 72, Hatfield IV knows much more about his father’s work thanks in large part to SULC professor Evelyn Wilson, who wrote a biography on his father, Laws, Customs, and Rights: Charles Hatfield and His Family—A Louisiana History.
“I do know that my father was more concerned with abolishing segregation at LSU than the opening of another segregated public institution,” Hatfield admitted. “He fought to get there, even after threats on his life. He didn’t enroll in law school, but took advantage of a fellowship offer and earned a master’s degree from Clark University in Atlanta,” he said.
Afterward, Hatfield III, who was born on 522 Europe Street in Baton Rouge, returned to Louisiana and taught in the public schools of New Orleans.
“Today, I think of him as a man on fire. He was always looking to address social injustice even as a union organizer for teachers.”
“At this time in life when we ask ourselves ‘who am I?’ it makes me very humble and very proud to know I have come from a man with such strength and determination,” Hatfield said.
Vanue B. Lacour Jr.
Lacour described his father as a tough man, who believed in doing the right thing. For him that meant becoming a lawyer, a “social engineer.” The senior Lacour was a graduate of the Howard University School of Law and was devoted to Charles Hamilton Houston, his dean and law professor, who stated that “a lawyer could be a social engineer or a parasite on society.”
In 1950, along with one of the Law Center’s first graduates, Jesse N. Stone, Lacour set up an office in Shreveport. The joint firm of Stone and Lacour was founded during a time when Shreveport had been without a black lawyer since 1932. “He successfully challenged impediments to voting rights for black residents and assisted in succession rights for illegitimate children,” Lacour Jr. said.
He knew that his father loved teaching, although he thought about quitting to just practice law. “As a law professor, he realized that he could and wanted to develop social engineers,” Lacour said.
A. P. Tureaud Jr.
Tureaud described his father as a quiet and soft-spoken man, committed to the law, and convinced that the courts were the avenues for securing civil rights and social change. The attorney was cordial to his fellow civil rights activists and his adversaries. He remembered the senior Tureaud agreeing wholeheartedly with a statement by Thurgood Marshall, then head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., “Lose your cool, lose your case.”
“He never denigrated his adversaries. He said we have to teach them,” Tureaud Jr., said.
“Despite the threats made against them when working for civil rights, my father and others continued to fight and remained involved in the development of laws that were just,” he said.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Attorney Tureaud was later successful in desegregating public professional schools and universities in Louisiana.
When asked by a student “How do you bridge the gap between those who feel that the NAACP is no longer relevant and the new face of the Black Lives Matter Movement?” the three panelists agreed that “we must understand where we stand in history.”
“It doesn’t matter what the methods are, if the goals are essentially the same,” Tureaud said. “We must maintain the common goal of fighting against injustice, period.”
“There is nothing worse than being ignorant of history,” Hatfield said. “You cannot dismiss the impact or the relevance of the role of the organizations that laid the foundation for where we are today,” he said.
In this Founders’ Day program, history met the relevancy of today’s continuing call for positive change. “Challenges and struggles, as well as call for change and successful efforts have come full circle,” Interim Chancellor John K. Pierre said.
“Knowing what has happened in the past gives us greater know-how and inspiration as we seek solutions to the seemingly ever-present challenges in our society, no matter what generation,” Pierre said.
Co-sponsors of the event were the SULC Louis A. Berry Civil Rights and Justice Institute; Student Bar Association, Patrick Harrington, president; SULC Chapter of National Lawyers Guild, Ada Goodly, president; SULC Diversity Committee, Cassandre Michel and Dax Ramsey, co-chairs; and the Baton Rouge Chapter of the National Association of Bench and Bar Spouses, Dr. Harriet Pitcher, president.
Seated, from left: Courtney Harris, Arthur Thomas, Nicole Sheppard, and Taryn Branson; and standing, from left: Gilbert Bayonne, Charles J. Hatfield IV, Vanue B. Lacour Jr., A. P. Tureaud Jr., and Robert McKnight.
From left: Chancellor John K. Pierre; Gail Grover, Office of the Mayor-President; and Charles J. Hatfield IV.
From left: Charles J. Hatfield IV, A. P. Tureaud Jr., Vanue B. Lacour Jr., Patrick Harrington, Ada Goodly, Chancellor John K. Pierre, Cassandre Michel, and Dax Ramsey.
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