What do you think?
Rate this book
Leander Perez: Boss of the Delta
A biography of the tumultuous career of one of Louisiana's staunchest segregationist politicians
498 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
Glen Jeansonne
27 books13 followersA specialist in twentieth-century American political history, Glen Stewart Jeansonne taught at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, Williams College, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he worked from 1978 until his retirement until 2015. He earned his BA in history from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and his Ph.D. at Florida State University under the direction of William Ivy Hair.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 16, 2020
It is rare for any American politician who held so little actual power in the nation to become such an infamous figure. That is what Leander Perez did and I wanted to know why and how. In the end I had to conclude that Perez might be the most extraordinary politician in Louisiana history and possibly in America, which is not a source of comfort.
From the 1920s to his death in 1969 Perez was the dictator of Plaquemines Parish, who also controlled much of St. Barnard Parish and influenced the state. In that time he amassed a fortune by defrauding his people while at the same time investing in the infrastructure and offering a generous helping of government jobs. He even undertook renovations of historic sites. Under him, Plaquemines went from rural backwater to being well run, peaceful, and prosperous. The price was one-party rule, corruption, and a segregation regime arguably more rigid than anywhere else in Louisiana.
Perez used his wealth, force of personality, and cunning to influence governors, senators, and presidential candidates. His rhetoric was bombastic, and he charged that American was under attack from a grand conspiracy of Zionist Jews, communists, and blacks (who were the dupes of Jews and communists) to destroy America. If his rhetoric over-reached and drew media commendation, it made him more popular in Plaquemines, which is really all he cared about. His shrewdest decision was sticking to his power base. He might send an angry letter to Dwight Eisenhower or advise a senator, but he refused to overreach. He was like a feudal lord who figured kingship was not worth the hassle and beyond his means. He preferred a small kingdom where he exercised total control over the broad riot of American life.
Perez was a dictator, one far less harsh than an Idid Amin or a Mao, but a dictator all the same. He was an arch hypocrite, a dictator who decried communist dictatorship, yet one who was blunt and honest in his racism, more so than any of his contemporaries. He could afford to be. His power in the delta was unquestioned and he was independently wealthy so he could say to hell with the rest. Two governors tried to break him; Perez beat them both. Although forced to integrate his schools by the state and federal government, he managed to quickly erect a successful private school system. The empire though collapsed ten years after his death in a story that reads like King Lear. His children fought each other and when his corruption was discovered, his honors fell away. Now, there is nothing named in honor of Perez. His statue was left to decay. Even one of his few great achievements, the restoration of Fort Jackson, was abandoned after Hurricane Katrina. Such is usually the case with dictators, even ones as comparatively benign as Perez.
Jeansonne's book left me thinking of all the above and trying to summarize his life. Perez's views and actions were terrible all around, yet Jeansonne identified correctly what made Perez successful in his day and attractive to many. It was his combination of boldness, racism, political cunning, bombastic charisma, and his balancing of graft with largesse. He defrauded Plaquemines Parish but also made enough internal improvements to hold the loyalty of the white citizenry and even a few blacks, particularly as unemployment was rarely higher than 2%. Under him people willingly moved to Plaquemines Parish, and not just Croatian oyster fisherman desperate for work.
This book was written only a few years after Perez died. Many of its assumptions seem off, and Jeansonne admits in the new foreward that it has the flaws of a book by a young man on the make. Yet one flawed he identified is I think the book's greatest strength: he was generous to Perez. I would say Jeansonne oversells this "generosity" for the Perez of these pages is not a heroic or admirable figure. I believe this attempt at "generosity" though allowed him to see how Perez amassed and kept his power and the attraction Perez held. As such, while the book is a hatchet job of sorts (how could it not be in a nation where post 1965 racism is considered the ultimate evil) it is one where we are never left wondering why Leander Perez was the most successful Louisiana politician of his time.
Lastly, the part where Jeansonne, in an updated afterword, declares the rise of another Perez as unlikely had me howling with laughter considering current events. Never say never about the future; what made Perez possible is alive and doing well today, and will always be with us. The desire for a strongman is not a monopoly of a political party, religion, nationality, civilization, race, or as Perez showed even a political philosophy. It is written into our souls. How else could a petty dictatorship flourish for over 40 years in the cradle of modern democratic government?
From the 1920s to his death in 1969 Perez was the dictator of Plaquemines Parish, who also controlled much of St. Barnard Parish and influenced the state. In that time he amassed a fortune by defrauding his people while at the same time investing in the infrastructure and offering a generous helping of government jobs. He even undertook renovations of historic sites. Under him, Plaquemines went from rural backwater to being well run, peaceful, and prosperous. The price was one-party rule, corruption, and a segregation regime arguably more rigid than anywhere else in Louisiana.
Perez used his wealth, force of personality, and cunning to influence governors, senators, and presidential candidates. His rhetoric was bombastic, and he charged that American was under attack from a grand conspiracy of Zionist Jews, communists, and blacks (who were the dupes of Jews and communists) to destroy America. If his rhetoric over-reached and drew media commendation, it made him more popular in Plaquemines, which is really all he cared about. His shrewdest decision was sticking to his power base. He might send an angry letter to Dwight Eisenhower or advise a senator, but he refused to overreach. He was like a feudal lord who figured kingship was not worth the hassle and beyond his means. He preferred a small kingdom where he exercised total control over the broad riot of American life.
Perez was a dictator, one far less harsh than an Idid Amin or a Mao, but a dictator all the same. He was an arch hypocrite, a dictator who decried communist dictatorship, yet one who was blunt and honest in his racism, more so than any of his contemporaries. He could afford to be. His power in the delta was unquestioned and he was independently wealthy so he could say to hell with the rest. Two governors tried to break him; Perez beat them both. Although forced to integrate his schools by the state and federal government, he managed to quickly erect a successful private school system. The empire though collapsed ten years after his death in a story that reads like King Lear. His children fought each other and when his corruption was discovered, his honors fell away. Now, there is nothing named in honor of Perez. His statue was left to decay. Even one of his few great achievements, the restoration of Fort Jackson, was abandoned after Hurricane Katrina. Such is usually the case with dictators, even ones as comparatively benign as Perez.
Jeansonne's book left me thinking of all the above and trying to summarize his life. Perez's views and actions were terrible all around, yet Jeansonne identified correctly what made Perez successful in his day and attractive to many. It was his combination of boldness, racism, political cunning, bombastic charisma, and his balancing of graft with largesse. He defrauded Plaquemines Parish but also made enough internal improvements to hold the loyalty of the white citizenry and even a few blacks, particularly as unemployment was rarely higher than 2%. Under him people willingly moved to Plaquemines Parish, and not just Croatian oyster fisherman desperate for work.
This book was written only a few years after Perez died. Many of its assumptions seem off, and Jeansonne admits in the new foreward that it has the flaws of a book by a young man on the make. Yet one flawed he identified is I think the book's greatest strength: he was generous to Perez. I would say Jeansonne oversells this "generosity" for the Perez of these pages is not a heroic or admirable figure. I believe this attempt at "generosity" though allowed him to see how Perez amassed and kept his power and the attraction Perez held. As such, while the book is a hatchet job of sorts (how could it not be in a nation where post 1965 racism is considered the ultimate evil) it is one where we are never left wondering why Leander Perez was the most successful Louisiana politician of his time.
Lastly, the part where Jeansonne, in an updated afterword, declares the rise of another Perez as unlikely had me howling with laughter considering current events. Never say never about the future; what made Perez possible is alive and doing well today, and will always be with us. The desire for a strongman is not a monopoly of a political party, religion, nationality, civilization, race, or as Perez showed even a political philosophy. It is written into our souls. How else could a petty dictatorship flourish for over 40 years in the cradle of modern democratic government?
October 1, 2018
This is an incisive, fascinating look at an old-style political boss made all the more odious by his racist demagoguery. Modern readers might find it incredible that a fascist tyrant could emerge and hide for decades behind a facade of American democracy. It's so easy to attribute Perez' career to Louisiana politics, or the South, or the backwater nature of his Delta stronghold in Plaquemines. But despite the regional quirks of the Perez regime and Da Judge himself, this same bossism was also prevalent in the industrial and financial capitals of the Northeast and Midwest. Nor was it always confined to the Democratic Party. The boss system holds in contempt the very institutions and processes by which the bosses themselves rose to power; which in turn provokes some deep reflection on the entire system of representative politics as conceived and practiced by the Global Leader of Democracy.
These concerns transcend the time and place of Perez' reactionary career. We see how easily Perez gamed the system for himself and his clients, and how that mentality continues unabated to the very hour of this typing. The concentration of legal power in a few, or in one official; the corruption of private vested interests in top-level deal making; the machinations of party insiders, and the marginalization of the public into passive spectators (even when voting) all hint at why the American political system seems so unreformable, even as Perez and his legacy stand repudiated.
The only feasible solutions - outside of a revolutionary redefinition of what, exactly, constitutes the nature of democracy - are in rigorous transparency, delegation of power, strictly enforced limits on private "investment" in government, and the broadest possible expansion and inclusion of the voting public. Sadly, we see these necessary trends going exactly the opposite way. No doubt The Judge would be highly pleased at his spiritual successor now serving as 45th President of the whole United States. Professor Jeansonne's account has become more than nostalgia.
These concerns transcend the time and place of Perez' reactionary career. We see how easily Perez gamed the system for himself and his clients, and how that mentality continues unabated to the very hour of this typing. The concentration of legal power in a few, or in one official; the corruption of private vested interests in top-level deal making; the machinations of party insiders, and the marginalization of the public into passive spectators (even when voting) all hint at why the American political system seems so unreformable, even as Perez and his legacy stand repudiated.
The only feasible solutions - outside of a revolutionary redefinition of what, exactly, constitutes the nature of democracy - are in rigorous transparency, delegation of power, strictly enforced limits on private "investment" in government, and the broadest possible expansion and inclusion of the voting public. Sadly, we see these necessary trends going exactly the opposite way. No doubt The Judge would be highly pleased at his spiritual successor now serving as 45th President of the whole United States. Professor Jeansonne's account has become more than nostalgia.
July 16, 2019
Judge Perez was one corrupt dude my goodness. Book itself was well written, I skimmed some of it though because I was mainly interested in his land grabs and shell companies in Plaquemines Parish, and am interested in how it relates to land management today down river. This was one awful dude but the book was thoroughly researched and well written so 4 stars!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews