Louisiana

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World War II and the Postwar Decades

During World War II the need for raw materials stimulated the development of Louisiana’s mineral resources. A prominent feature of that development was the establishment along the Gulf Coast, as well as in other parts of the state, of huge chemical and petrochemical plants. Increasing mineral production and expanded industrial activity characterized the postwar decades as well. Many farmers, displaced by the mechanization of agriculture or simply seeking better opportunities, took jobs in such rapidly expanding industrial centers as Baton Rouge and Lake Charles. By 1950 the state’s urban population exceeded its rural population. Some farmers, especially blacks, left the state to move to large Western and Northern cities, especially Chicago, Illinois, and Oakland, California. Thousands of poor Cajuns and blacks migrated to the Golden Triangle area of southeastern Texas, taking jobs in the refineries and shipyards of Beaumont, Orange, and Port Arthur.

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Racial Integration

Between 1898 and 1954 racial segregation was required by law in all Louisiana public schools. Following the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring such segregation illegal, the state legislature passed a series of laws and resolutions designed to maintain segregation. When the federal courts declared these laws unconstitutional, integration began under court order in two New Orleans primary schools in the fall of 1960. Boycotts and rioting by whites that accompanied this initial integration received worldwide publicity. Desegregation of Roman Catholic schools was begun in 1962 on order of the archbishop of New Orleans, who excommunicated several vocal opponents of his integration order. The first desegregation of the state’s public high schools occurred in 1963, and schools outside the larger cities were first desegregated in 1964. The civil rights issue dominated Louisiana politics during most of the 1960s.

By 1971, however, the issue of equal rights for blacks seemed largely at rest. In the Democratic primary race for the governor’s seat, champions of the old white supremacy concept were overwhelmed by young candidates stressing racial harmony, an end to political corruption, and attention to Louisiana’s economic advancement. The general election between the Democratic winner, Edwin W. Edwards, and his surprisingly strong Republican opponent, David C. Treen, marked a return to the political styles and issues of the Long years, with Edwards as the flamboyant populist and Treen as the reformer. This was the posture of all elections for governor from 1971 to 1995. The 1971 election also marked a shift of political control from the predominantly rural and Protestant northern parishes to the more urban and Catholic southern section of Louisiana.

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The Late 20th Century

During the first two terms of Edwards (1972-1980), Louisiana had unprecedented economic prosperity as a result of the oil boom. Under Edwards’s leadership, the state focused its economic hopes on the oil industry, despite forecasts that the state’s oil reserves were declining and the industry’s future in the state was less than promising. State taxes were reduced as revenues from oil royalties and oil industry taxes became the government’s main source of income. For a brief period, state revenues exceeded expenditures. The Edwards administration used the surpluses to create the largest state bureaucracy per capita in the nation. Treen won the governorship in 1979 on a reform platform, but was unable to get the cooperation of the pro-Edwards legislature. In 1983 Edwards ran against Treen and was again elected governor. In 1985 he and several associates were indicted for fraud and racketeering in a hospital construction scandal. The first trial ended in a hung jury; at the second trial, in 1986, Edwards was acquitted.

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The highly publicized Edwards trial coincided with the state’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Oil prices had begun a gradual decline in 1981, producing a ripple effect in the Louisiana economy. In December 1985 the world petroleum market virtually collapsed, as did the oil-based south Louisiana economy. In the 1987 primary, Edwards lost the nomination to Democratic Congressman Charles E. “Buddy” Roemer, who became governor in 1988.

Like the Treen administration before it, Roemer’s reform administration was unable to get its programs through the legislature. In October 1988 Roemer called for a special legislative session to enact a sweeping fiscal reform program. Although the state was burdened with a $1 billion debt and leading newspapers, television stations, and business interests supported the program, it met a resounding defeat. A watered-down version was also defeated by the legislature in March 1989.

The Edwards faction advocated state-sanctioned gambling as the route to economic recovery for Louisiana. The faction was opposed by proponents of economic diversification. The gambling advocates eventually won, despite widespread grass-roots opposition. This generated resentment among the voters. This resentment grew with a precipitous rise in state and local taxes, the continuing economic malaise, and the growing influence of special interest groups. Rumblings of a grass-roots political upheaval were first felt in the strong 1990 senatorial campaign of David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan member, against Louisiana’s senior U.S. senator, J. Bennett Johnston. The voter rebellion gathered strength following Edwards’s defeat of Duke in the 1991 campaign for governor.

Edwards declined to run again in 1995. The rapid growth of the gambling industry, the perceived indifference of state politicians, and FBI allegations of corruption in the legislature led to the election in 1995 of Republican Mike Foster. Foster was an outspoken opponent of gambling and, as governor, worked to remove the pro-Edwards leadership in the legislature. In 1999 he was reelected by a large margin. The following year, a jury convicted former governor Edwards and four associates, including his son Stephen, of racketeering, extortion, and conspiracy charges in the awarding of casino licenses. Edwards appealed the convictions, but after his appeals failed he entered federal prison.

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The Early 21st Century

In 2003 Democrats regained the governor’s office with the runoff election of lieutenant governor Kathleen Blanco, the first woman to be elected governor of Louisiana. Foster was unable to run because of a Louisiana constitutional provision that prohibits more than two consecutive terms. Blanco’s election ended a string of Republican victories in the South in 2003, which included winning the statehouses in Kentucky and Mississippi.

In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, resulting in the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. Plaquemines Parish, a narrow strip of delta southeast of New Orleans, bore the brunt of the storm in Louisiana. The hurricane’s Category 3 winds and storm surge nearly obliterated fishing and oil towns in the parish. The hurricane then turned east toward Mississippi, narrowly sparing New Orleans its full force. However, the city was subsequently flooded as its levees failed to withstand the storm surge.

The entire city had to be evacuated. Tens of thousands of inner-city residents, mostly black and poor, were stranded for nearly a week before being relocated. President George W. Bush ordered an investigation into rescue and emergency response efforts. Many state and local officials blamed the delayed response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Louisiana elected the first Indian-American governor in the South in its gubernatorial election in October 2007. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, became the first nonwhite to occupy the governor’s mansion since the Reconstruction era. He was born in Baton Rouge and is the son of immigrants from India. Jindal had been the Republican nominee for governor in 2003, but lost that election to Blanco. In 2004 he was elected to Congress, representing Louisiana’s first congressional district.

The history section of this article was contributed by Carl A. Brasseaux. The remainder of the article was contributed by John Michael Caldwell.

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