Morgan D. Peoples - in Search of The Real Earl Kemp Long

In Search of The Real Earl Kemp Long

For nearly two decades, Peoples researched the life of the colorful governor known as "Uncle Earl". He sought to separate fact from legend in his research. Long's flamboyant and seemingly endless career made it difficult and therefore time-consuming to research and write the book that Peoples had in mind. After years of studious endeavors, Peoples joined Kurtz, a colleague from Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, and they produced The Saga of Uncle Earl and Louisiana Politics, published in 1992.

A reviewer for Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge offered this synopsis of the Peoples-Kurtz book: Earl Long "was a raspy-voiced stump orator who in his speeches employed anecdotes, name-calling, and quotations from the Bible with equal facility. He was a rustic master of Louisiana politics who was suspected of consorting with known criminals and yet compiled one of the greatest records of reform for Louisiana’s poor in this century. Frequently referring to himself as 'the last of the red hot poppas ,' Long correctly predicted that after him all politicians would have to learn to use the medium of television in campaigning. From his days on the campaign trail with his brother Huey P. Long, Jr., through the course of his own remarkable career, Earl Long came to epitomize the character of the powerful southern demagogue."

Peoples and Kurtz depict Earl Long’s role in the rise to power of his brother Huey, and they give a frank, unvarnished description of the no-hold-barred political tactics that Uncle Earl advocated. At one time, Earl turned against Huey and tried to get him indicted. This occurred one year when Huey opposed Earl's candidacy for lieutenant governor. The division was not resolved until future U.S. Senator Russell B. Long (1918–2003), Huey's oldest son, agreed to become Earl's executive counsel, more than a decade after Huey's assassination.

The authors show how Earl Long dedicated his own career to improving the lives of Louisiana’s masses, and they emphasize how in his unorthodox way Long became one of Louisiana's most progressive and effective governors. At the risk of his own political success, Earl Long was an early champion of civil rights, a fact the authors claim has generally been ignored. Long's defense of African Americans was overlooked at the time because of his own use of racial epithets and his desire to register black voters for his own political motives.

Kurtz and Peoples present new information from declassified FBI files concerning Long’s ties to organized crime figures, who gave him substantial sums of money to keep their illegal gambling operations flourishing. They also offer the first comprehensive account of Long's highly publicized stays in mental institutions in 1959, including an interpretation of the psychiatric and physical causes of his "breakdown", and provide factual information about Long's relationship with the stripper Blaze Starr.

By exploring Earl Long’s controversial life-style yet his strong family ties, his raw humor and his political savvy, his abuse of power, and his accomplishments in the areas of civil rights and public services, this biography, according to the reviewer, fills a serious gap in the history of modern Louisiana politics.