Jack Nelson, civil rights activist passes

[Anita Garcia]

Mr. Nelson represented the Deacons for Defense, a group of Bogalusa civil rights activists who opted to arm themselves against the Ku Klux Klan. And he sued the state to force Louisiana to desegregate its high school athletics program.
From <http://www.nola.com/obituaries/t-p/index.ssf?/base/obits-33/114197416074230.xml> Times Picayune
"There was not a white man in this state who compared to Jack Nelson as a civil rights lawyer. He was without peer," said Elie, who met Mr. Nelson in 1957 when Elie was a second-semester law student at Loyola University. "It took guts."

In "Race & Democracy," author Adam Fairclough notes that Mr. Nelson's campaign to force Tulane University to admit African-Americans was a year of bloody battles.

"As historian Kim Lacy Rogers notes, it 'generated bitter, unswerving local hostility' and 'destroyed whatever remaining chances John Nelson might have for an elected judgeship or a political career,' " Fairclough observes in his book examining the civil rights struggle in Louisiana.