George W. D'Artois

He joined the Democratic Party, which still dominated politics in Louisiana during the decades when most African-Americans were disenfranchised under the state's 1898 constitution.

The party, being controlled by white conservative Southern Democrats, had raised barriers to voter registration, as did the common Jim Crow discriminatory practices in most jurisdictions.

George Wendell D'Artois, Sr. (December 25, 1925 – June 11, 1977) was an American law enforcement officer and politician in Shreveport, Louisiana, who served as the city's Public Safety Commissioner from 1962 to 1976.

Concerned about growing Republican strength in the state, D'Artois hired James S. "Jim" Leslie (1937–1976), a former Shreveport Times journalist who had become an advertising executive, to manage communications for his campaign for a fourth term as Public Safety Commissioner in 1974.

After D'Artois won, he gave Leslie a check for his services that was drawn on city funds.

Leslie returned the check and asked that it be reissued on D'Artois's campaign account.

According to Leslie, D'Artois gave him another check from city funds.

Leslie did not cash either of them.

During World War II, D'Artois served for three years in the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater of Operations, with action beginning in November 1943 in the Battle of Bougainville.

He attained the rank of sergeant.

After the war, D'Artois studied Business Administration at Centenary College in Shreveport and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

During D'Artois's tenure as Public Safety Commissioner, Shreveport had a commission form of government.

Commissioners were elected at-large and exercised both legislative and executive duties, both on the city council and as a department head.

There were relatively few commissioner seats on the council.

This kept power in the hands of those who could gain a majority of voters.

African-Americans were still mostly disenfranchised and were not yet being elected to local office.

The Civil Rights Movement soon raised legal challenges to city commission governments, charging that they prevented minorities from being able to elect candidates of their choice.

In 1952, D'Artois became a deputy for the Caddo Parish Sheriff's Department under J. Howell Flournoy.

After nine years as deputy sheriff, D'Artois resigned to run in 1962 for Public Safety Commissioner in Shreveport, a post that was sometimes seen as a step toward higher office: Governor Jimmie Davis had served in that position in Shreveport from 1938 to 1942.

In September 1963, as racial tensions were peaking in Shreveport, D'Artois was accused of using intimidation to suppress civil rights activities by African-Americans which were aiming to end racial segregation in the city.

Many more African-Americans were voting since passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and they widely supported Democratic candidates.

O'Hearn notified D'Artois and Caddo Parish Sheriff James M. Goslin that election laws had been violated at three predominately African-American voting precincts in Shreveport.

D'Artois's administration was repeatedly investigated on allegations of mismanagement and corruption.

These allegations were covered by journalist Bill Keith of The Shreveport Times, who was later elected as a Louisiana State Senator.

In state elections held on February 6, 1968, Republican State Representative Taylor W. O'Hearn of Shreveport was seeking a second term.

In the 1970 election, D'Artois received 59.8 percent of the vote in a contest with the Republican nominee William Kimball, who carried the Southern Hills section of south Shreveport.

This was a lower percentage than in previous elections.

D'Artois was investigated more than once for misuse of city funds, and was arrested for his alleged involvement in the 1976 shooting death of Jim Leslie, a Shreveport advertising executive who had managed D'Artois' 1974 re-election campaign.

He was released for lack of evidence.

A trial on charges of theft of city funds and intimidation of witnesses was postponed several times because of D'Artois's poor health.

Arrested again in April 1977 for Leslie's murder, D'Artois died the following month during heart surgery and never went to trial.

Histories published in the decades since D'Artois' death state that he was involved with organized crime and had contracted for the murders of both Leslie and Leslie's killer to prevent their testimony before a grand jury.

George W. D'Artois was one of two sons of William Francis D'Artois, Sr. and the former Mary Holmes.

He graduated from C. E. Byrd High School.

D'Artois married the former Billie Claire Best, with whom he had a son, George, Jr., and two daughters, Mary Cecile and Elaine Claire.

D'Artois had denied a permit to a group wanting to march a short distance to the Little Union Baptist Church, where a memorial service was to be held honoring four black girls who had been killed that month in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.

D'Artois ordered his riot squad against what observers said was a peaceful demonstration, and personally rode on horseback into the church sanctuary, interrupting the service and violating sacred space.

He then dragged away the pastor, Reverend Harry Blake, and beat him severely.

Blake was hospitalized for several weeks.

As D'Artois continued to seek office in a changing political climate, when African-Americans could vote freely, he maintained his popularity with whites and cultivated it with blacks.