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Fred Prejean

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Fred Prejean
Fred Prejean speaking at the site of the Mouton statue in Lafayette, Louisiana, August 28, 2018
Born(1946-09-06)September 6, 1946
Lafayette, Louisiana, U.S.
DiedJanuary 27, 2022(2022-01-27) (aged 75)
Lafayette, Louisiana, U.S.
Alma materHoly Rosary Institute
Southern University
SpouseOla Sims Prejean
ChildrenDaughter Masharika Prejean Maddison (Sean)
Parent(s)Oran and Edolia Prejean

Fredrick James Prejean Sr. (September 6, 1946 - January 27, 2022) was an American activist from Lafayette, Louisiana.[1]

Biography

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Early life and education

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Fred Prejean was born in 1946 in Lafayette, Louisiana to Oran and Edolia Prejean. He grew up near downtown Lafayette in an area colloquially known as Fightinville (or Fightingville).[2][3]

In August 1963, just one week before his seventeenth birthday, Prejean found his life purpose. As a student at Holy Rosary Institute, he received permission from his family to attend the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. There, he witnessed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech and saw civil rights legends, John Lewis and Rosa Parks. He returned to Lafayette with a newfound understanding of what community meant, and how he hoped to influence his beloved hometown. "That experience became my north star," Prejean said in 2020.[4] Prejean went on to be a community activist for over 50 years.[1]

Upon high school graduation in 1964 from Holy Rosary Institute, Prejean served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve for six years.[5] Prejean credited his military experience with teaching him the importance of teamwork, strategy, discipline, and communication.[2]

Immediately after high school graduation, Prejean began building his career working as a recruiter, trainer, and supervisor of community organizers in the burgeoning consumer cooperative movement.[1][6]

Prejean worked with an organization headed by Fr A.J. McKnight, the Southern Consumers Cooperative. There he helped black entrepreneurs envision, design, and launch startup businesses, and received his early training as a community organizer. In Sunset, Louisiana, Prejean helped to organize a buyers club to enable members to buy their groceries at a cheaper price. He also worked in Sunset to help local farmers establish the Grand Marie Vegetable Producers Cooperative to give Black farmers power over their prices for sweet potatoes.[7] At the time, Black farmers were not paid the same price for their produce as white farmers. The cooperative allowed Black farmers to skip the white middleman and sell directly to northern markets. This cooperative development movement of activists ultimately evolved into the Federation of Southern Cooperatives which succeeded in establishing more than 150 small businesses across 11 southern states.[8]

In 1970, Prejean enrolled in Southern University studying Accounting and Business Management. In March 1972, Fred Prejean and other students traveled by bus to Gary Indiana to participate in the National Black Political Convention. Prejean described this experience as "another march on Washington kind of experience for me."[1]

Fred Prejean was a member and leader of a Southern University student group called Students United. In the fall semester of 1972, students led a campus protest and class boycott over concerns about equitable funding for the university, and a proposal to administratively merge Southern University and Louisiana State University to provide an appearance of integration. A court injunction was issued ordering five student leaders of the protest movement including Prejean to not come on campus. However, all of the leaders continued to go on campus. After about a week, law enforcement entered Prejean's home at three o'clock in the morning on November 16, 1972, and arrested him.

Having learned of the early-morning arrest of Prejean and three other student leaders, a group of students went to the school administration building to ask the school president for help getting their classmates released. The campus protest were peaceful, but an anonymous caller allegedly then incorrectly reported to local law enforcement that the university president had been taken hostage. Law enforcement responded in force, some sent by Governor Edwin Edwards. Before Prejean was released on bail, two students, Denver Smith and Leonard Brown, were killed by law enforcement officers during a peaceful campus protest.[9] These murders were never solved. Denver Smith and Leonard Brown both appear as cases that were opened under the Emmett Till Antilynching Act.[10] According to a 2024 list of cases under the Till Act, the case remains open.[11]

Following the shootings, nine student protest leaders including Prejean were expelled from the university and banned from campus. Prejean chose to fight for his right to graduate. He took classes at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. In December 1974, a state judge lifted Prejean’s ban from campus allowing him to graduate from Southern.[12]

Community service

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After graduating from Southern University, Prejean again worked for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.[4] Three credit unions that provided low interest loans to members were established with Prejean's guidance – St. Paul's Federal Credit Union in Lafayette, Louisiana; St. Jules Federal Credit Union in Franklin, Louisiana; and Madison Parish Federal Credit Union in Tallulah, Louisiana.[7]

From 1999 to 2007, Fred Prejean was a member and Chairperson of the Lafayette Planning and Zoning Commission.[7] The McComb-Veazey and Freetown-Port Rico neighborhood organizations formed during his tenure with planning and zoning.[1]

Prejean served as undersecretary at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries from 1991 to 1996.[1][13] He was also president of a consulting firm, Empire Management Inc., and retired from that position in 2012[1]

Fred Prejean founded a community organization, Move the Mindset, in 2016, and served as its president from 2016 until his death in 2022.[14] Move the Mindset is not only a membership organization but also a coalition of local organizations. Move the Mindset is committed to promoting racial and social justice through education, dialog, the arts, and direct action. The organization seeks to educate and establish community acknowledgement concerning the local history of slavery and racial terrorism while seeking forgiveness and reconciliation. An important goal was to gain support for relocating the statue of Confederate General Alfred Mouton from in front of the old City Hall in downtown Lafayette to an educational site, museum, or Civil War battlefield. With the unanimous support of the city/parish council and mayor/president Josh Guillory,[15] that goal was achieved on July 17, 2021 when the statue was removed and finally moved to Camp Moore, a historic confederate camp and cemetery.[1][16]

Prejean actively served his Lafayette community in many other roles.[1][7] From 1986 to 1988, Prejean was a volunteer Business Advisor and Board Member for St. Paul's Catholic School. In 2006, Prejean was member and president of the Lafayette Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation. He joined the Lafayette North Planning Coordinating Team for a year in 2007. He also served as a member of the Greater Southwest Louisiana Black Chamber of Commerce, was a board member for Festival International de Louisiane and a member of the Lafayette Chapter of the NAACP. He also served as the committee chairperson for the Heymann Scholarship Academic Awards. Prejean worked with other members of a restoration committee to develop a business plan to help restore the Holy Rosary Institute.[4] The Institute was a historic Black Catholic high school founded in 1913 and closed in 1993.

Death

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Prejean died on January 27, 2022 in Lafayette at the age of seventy-five. A community memorial service was held on February 4, 2022 at the Acadiana Center for the Arts.

Personal life

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During his first days on campus at Southern, while walking to the student union, he met Ola Sims, who would later become his wife and partner in community leadership.[1][2] Sims and Prejean married in August 1974.[12]

Prejean was a Catholic.[17]

Legacy and honors

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Over the years, Prejean received numerous honors and awards in recognition of his community service.

  • 2020 Lafayette Civic Cup - An award given to honor an outstanding individual who has given of their time and resources to improve the Lafayette community.[7][5]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Malbreaux, Susannah Johnson (July–August 2021). "One on One with Community Activist - Frederick James Prejean, Sr" (PDF). The Southern View Magazine: 10–19.
  2. ^ a b c "Fredrick James Prejean Sr. (September 6, 1946 – January 27, 2022)". Obituaries. Kinchen Funeral Home.
  3. ^ Olivier, Jonathan (April 23, 2021). "Fightinville Fresh". Country Roads Magazine.
  4. ^ a b c White, Ashley (January 27, 2022). "Lafayette civil rights icon, community activist Fred Prejean dies at 75". Lafayette Daily Advertiser. Retrieved April 4, 2024.
  5. ^ a b "A RESOLUTION To commend and congratulate Fredrick "Fred" Prejean Sr". Louisiana Senate Resolution No. 9, 2021 Regular Session. Retrieved May 7, 2024.
  6. ^ White, Monica M. (2018). Freedom farmers: agricultural resistance and the black freedom movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 189. JSTOR 10.5149/9781469643717_white.13.
  7. ^ a b c d e Dodge, Victoria (November 7, 2020). "2020 Lafayette Civic Cup recipient Fred Prejean has long history of helping people help themselves". The Lafayette Daily Advertiser. Retrieved April 5, 2024.
  8. ^ "Federation of Southern Cooperatives".
  9. ^ Victor, Trammell (November 16, 2020). "Today in 1972, two black students were murdered by police during protest at Southern University". Black Then.
  10. ^ "Un(re)solved". PBS. Retrieved May 9, 2024.
  11. ^ "Cases opened under the Till Act and its Reauthorization (as of January 24, 2024)". U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved May 9, 2024.
  12. ^ a b Sullivan, Claire; Dunn, Brittany; Kleinpeter, Shelly; Allsop, Allison (November 14, 2022). "Pain, lessons remain decades after Southern shooting". LSU Manship School News Service. Verite News. Retrieved May 9, 2024.
  13. ^ Mader, Christiaan (January 27, 2022). "Lafayette civil rights leader Fred Prejean has died". Lafayette, Louisiana: The Current. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
  14. ^ "In Memory of Fred Prejean". Move the Mindset. June 21, 2020. Retrieved May 7, 2024.
  15. ^ "Lafayette's city council unanimously supports mayor/president's effort to remove confederate statue". Hot 107.9 News. July 22, 2020. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
  16. ^ Toole, Taylor (November 22, 2021). "General Mouton statue finds new home". KATC 3. Retrieved May 7, 2024.
  17. ^ Stickney, Ken (October 19, 2020). "Baton handed on: Prejean to be honored for lifetime pursuing racial, social justice". The Advocate. Retrieved May 12, 2024.
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