Littleberry Calhoun Allen, Jr. (February 8, 1921 – February 23, 1991), was from 1970 to 1978 a two-term Democratic

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 mayor of Shreveport

Shreveport, Louisiana

Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....

, Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, the state's third largest city. From 1962-1970, he was the municipal public utilities commissioner. He also served some two months as a "District B" city council member after his election in the fall of 1990. The racially moderate Allen presided over a formerly segregated Shreveport, but there was much unrest in the black community during his tenure. Public Safety Commissioner George W. D'Artois had resigned in a swirl of corruption accusations though none reached directly to Allen. By the end of Allen's tenure, City Hall controversies produced a sense of stagnation even though Allen had worked for industrial development and public works projects, one of which bears his name.

The Allen family heritage

Allen preferred to use the first initial "L", rather than the unusual name "Littleberry." He was "Calhoun Allen" or "L. Calhoun Allen, Jr.," to the public, not "Littleberry Allen" or some other combination. "Littleberry" had been his grandfather, who was born in Virginia in 1862 and had relocated to Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

 and then to Shreveport near the end of the 19th century. Littleberry Calhoun Allen, Sr., who used the designation "L. C. Allen", was a businessman, a Shreveport city council member, a grand master of the Masonic

Freemasonry

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...

  lodge, and a Baptist

Baptist

Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

, who staunchly opposed liquor use and sales to the extent that he would support Prohibition Party

Prohibition Party

The Prohibition Party is a political party in the United States best known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages. It is the oldest existing third party in the US. The party was an integral part of the temperance movement...

 causes and candidates, rather than the heavily favored Democratic nominees. L. C. Allen established what became Allen Manufacturing Company and Caddo Lumber Company. Littleberry Allen had a son, L. C. Allen, Jr. Littleberry Allen died of Bright's disease

Bright's disease

Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer used, as diseases are now classified according to their more fully understood causes....

 early in the 20th century. Therefore, L. Calhoun Allen was really L. Calhoun Allen, III, but he used "Jr.," instead because his contemporaries did not know his grandfather as "L.C. Allen, I." And Calhoun Allen named his son "L. Calhoun Allen, III".

Allen, a Shreveport native, graduated in 1938 from C. E. Byrd High School

C. E. Byrd High School

C. E. Byrd High School is a science and mathematics magnet and a Blue Ribbon School. In continuous operation since 1925, Byrd is the largest high school in Shreveport, Louisiana and has the largest alumni association of any U.S. high school....

 in Shreveport. For a time, the Episcopalian

Episcopal Church (United States)

The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...

 Allen attended Roman Catholic-affiliated Tulane University

Tulane University

Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...

 in New Orleans. However, he graduated from the Methodist-affiliated Centenary College

Centenary College of Louisiana

Centenary College of Louisiana is a primarily undergraduate, liberal arts and sciences college in Shreveport, Louisiana. The college is one of the founding members of the Associated Colleges of the South, a pedagogical organization consisting of sixteen Southern liberal arts colleges...

 in Shreveport. He also attended Louisiana State University Law School in Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...

. He was associated with Allen Construction Company until he became utilities commissioner in 1962.

32-year Navy veteran

Allen served in the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 from 1943-1946 (World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 service) and again form 1950-1954 during the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

. He retired with the rank of captain from the U.S. Naval Reserve after more than three decades of total service. He was a former member of the Council of the Navy League of the United States, the Naval Reserve Association, and the Reserve Officers Association. Allen was a past commander of the Lowe-McFarland American Legion

American Legion

The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...

 post in Shreveport. And he was chairman of the naval affairs committee of the Louisiana American Legion.

Republican campaign for Congress, 1956

In 1956, Calhoun Allen was a 34-year-old Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

, a supporter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

's reelection, and his party's candidate for the Fourth Congressional District seat long held by the popular Democrat Overton Brooks

Overton Brooks

Thomas Overton Brooks was a Democratic U.S. representative from the Shreveport-based Fourth Congressional District of northwest Louisiana, having served for a quarter century beginning on January 3, 1937. Brooks was a nephew of U.S. Senator John Holmes Overton as well as a great-grandson of Walter...

.

Allen's campaign was directed by his friend, Shreveport businessman and civic leader Charles T. Beaird

Charles T. Beaird

Charles Thomas Beaird of Shreveport, Louisiana, was an industrialist, newspaper publisher, philanthropist and civic leader. He was a self-identified "liberal Republican" politician and a champion of civil rights. Born to James Benjamin Beaird and Mattie Connell Fort Beaird, his mother died six...

 (1922–2006), who earlier in the year had been elected as a Republican on the Caddo Parish

Caddo Parish, Louisiana

Caddo Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Shreveport; as of 2000, the population was 252,161...

 Police Jury (later the Caddo Parish Commission). Political advertising showed World War II veterans Eisenhower and Allen shaking hands and outlined their points of similarity. Allen stressed the need for two-party politics and said that the one-party South could benefit from an infusion of Republicanism. He attacked Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson, as "radical" in nature, while Eisenhower, he said, was "moderate on civil rights."

Congressman Brooks, who had served since 1937, endorsed Stevenson. Brooks told voters that he had "always been a Democrat and am too old to change now." Allen questioned Brooks' constituent services. He asked why there was inadequate postal service in Springhill

Springhill, Louisiana

Springhill is a city in northern Webster Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 5,439 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Minden Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...

 in northern Webster Parish

Webster Parish, Louisiana

Webster Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The seat of the parish is Minden. In 2010, its population was 41,207....

. Roy Fish, a Springhill attorney and then the chairman of the Webster Parish Republican Party, said that Brooks appeared to be attempting to coast to victory "on the coattails of both parties." Clem S. Clarke, the Shreveport Republican oilman who had challenged the election of Democrat Russell B. Long

Russell B. Long

Russell Billiu Long was an American Democratic politician and United States Senator from Louisiana from 1948 until 1987.-Early life:...

 to the U.S. Senate in 1948, declared in an Allen advertisement: "We need a Southern Republican." Allen also won some Democratic support but not nearly at the level needed to win the election.

In addition to the Allen campaign, Louisiana Republicans in 1956 offered a congressional candidate in the Second District, which then encompassed parts of Orleans and Jefferson

Jefferson Parish, Louisiana

Jefferson Parish is a parish in Louisiana, United States that includes most of the suburbs of New Orleans. The seat of parish government is Gretna....

 parishes. He was George R. Blue

George R. Blue

George R. Blue, Sr. , was a New Orleans attorney who served from 1964 to 1972 a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Jefferson Parish in the New Orleans suburbs....

, an attorney. Attracted to Blue's candidacy but still a Democrat was a young Metairie

Metairie, Louisiana

Metairie is a census-designated place in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States and is a major part of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area. Metairie is the largest community in Jefferson Parish. It is an unincorporated area that would be larger than most of the state's cities if it were...

 attorney, David C. Treen

David C. Treen

David Conner "Dave" Treen, Sr. , was an American attorney and politician from Mandeville, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana – the first Republican Governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana since Reconstruction. He was the first Republican in modern times to have served in the U.S...

, who would later become the first Louisiana Republican to win a seat in Congress and to hold the governorship as well.

Eisenhower easily won Louisiana in 1956, the first Republican presidential victory in the state since the disputed election of Rutherford B. Hayes

Rutherford B. Hayes

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th President of the United States . As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction and the United States' entry into the Second Industrial Revolution...

 in 1876. He led in 43 parishes and polled 329,047 votes (53.2 percent) to Stevenson's 243,977 (39.5 percent). The States Rights Party received 44,520 votes (7.2 percent). Stevenson ran nearly 100,000 votes behind his showing in Louisiana four years earlier.

In the Fourth District House race, Brooks won every parish and defeated Allen easily, 40,583 (68.1 percent) to 19,041 (31.9 percent). Allen's strongest support was in his native Caddo and in neighboring De Soto Parish

De Soto Parish, Louisiana

-Demographics:As of the census of 2010, there were 26,656 people, 9,691 households, and 6,967 families residing in the parish. The population density was 29 people per square mile . There were 11,204 housing units at an average density of 13 per square mile...

, where he received 34.6 and 34.5 percent, respectively. Brooks' margins were even greater in the parishes of Bienville

Bienville Parish, Louisiana

Bienville Parish is a parish located in the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Arcadia and as of the 2000 census, the population is 15,752....

, Claiborne

Claiborne Parish, Louisiana

Claiborne Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Homer and as of 2000, the population is 16,851.-History:The parish is named for the first Louisiana governor, William C. C. Claiborne....

, Red River

Red River Parish, Louisiana

Red River Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Its seat is Coushatta. It was one of the newer parishes created in 1871 by the state legislature under Reconstruction...

, Bossier

Bossier Parish, Louisiana

Bossier Parish is named for Pierre Bossier, a 19th-century Louisiana state senator and U.S. representative from Natchitoches Parish.Bossier Parish was spared fighting on its soil during the American Civil War...

, and Webster.

In the Second District, popular incumbent

Incumbent

The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent. For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W...

 Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr.

Hale Boggs

Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. , was an American Democratic politician and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Orleans, Louisiana...

, defeated George Blue, 69,715 (64.5 percent) to 38,344 (35.5 percent). Like Allen, Blue would later switch to the Democratic Party. Whereas Allen became a city commissioner and then mayor and even later city council member, Blue was elected in 1964 to an at-large seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives from Jefferson Parish.

Election as mayor, 1970

Allen served eight years as the elected public utilities commissioner under the former Shreveport commission form of government. He would tout those eight years of municipal experience when he launched his first mayoral campaign in 1970. Incumbent Democrat Clyde Edward Fant, Sr., was stepping down after five nonconsecutive terms as Shreveport mayor in part because of health considerations.

After a lopsided win in the Democratic primary, Allen defeated Edward L. "Ed" McGuire (1914–1983), a native of New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 and the first Shreveport Republican since Reconstruction to contest the mayoralty position. McGuire, along with Billy James Guin, Sr. (born 1927), and the late Joel B. Brown, had been the first Republicans in modern times to have been elected to the Caddo Parish School Board, having served from 1964 until 1970. Allen's margin over McGuire was by landslide proportions, 63-37 percent. He forged a winning coalition of blacks, blue-collar whites, and local businessmen that would dominate Shreveport politically for most of the remaining years of the twentieth century.

Not until 1990 did a Republican, Hazel Beard

Hazel Beard

Hazel Fain Beard is the first woman and the first Republican to have served as mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, since the era of Reconstruction. A fiscal conservative, Mrs...

, win the mayor's race. When she stepped down after a single term in 1994, another Republican, Robert Warren "Bo" Williams

Robert W. "Bo" Williams

Robert Warren "Bo" Williams is a former Republican mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, having served a single term from 1994-1998....

 succeeded her. Williams was then unseated by the Democrat Keith Paul Hightower

Keith Hightower

Keith Paul Hightower is a businessman who is the former Democratic mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana.Hightower graduated from Captain Shreve High School in 1975; one of his classmates was later State Senator Greg Barro, a Shreveport lawyer. Hightower then graduated in 1979 from Louisiana Tech...

 in 1998.

At least one prominent area Republican, Tom Colten

Tom Colten

Arthur Thomas Colten, known as Tom Colten , was a Louisiana politician from the 1960s to the 1990s who rose from a small-town mayoralty position to head his state's Department of Transportation and Development under three governors from both parties...

 (1922–2004), the mayor of Minden

Minden, Louisiana

Minden is a city in the American state of Louisiana. It serves as the parish seat of Webster Parish and is located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish. The population, which has been stable since 1960, was 13,027 at the 2000 census...

 in Webster Parish, welcomed Calhoun Allen's victory and cited the candidate's impressive background and experience. Colten was winning a second term as a "nonpartisan" Republican at the same time that Allen was first elected mayor as a Democrat.

Allen led his city during a time of transition and racial moderation. The city population grew, particularly the mostly white outlying residential areas. And new industry came to Shreveport, but critics said it was never sufficient to provide jobs for all who sought work. In time, blacks became the majority of Shreveport's population and a political force of immense proportions within the municipality. Caddo Parish, as a whole, however, remained majority white.

In 1971, a Republican, George A. Burton, Jr.

George A. Burton

George Aubrey Burton, Jr. , is a Certified Public Accountant and the last elected finance commissioner in Shreveport. Burton is the first Republican since Reconstruction to have been elected to municipal office in Shreveport, having served as finance commissioner from 1971-1978...

, won a special election in Shreveport for the vacant position of finance commissioner. A Certified Public Accountant, Burton proved competent in the position and ran again in the regular 1974 elections. That year, he had the tacit support of "independent" Mayor Allen, who swept to an easy reelection. Burton polled 17,488 votes (68.8 percent), while the Democrat (later Republican) David R. Carroll (1926-2011), a Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

 native and a Caddo Parish police juror, received 7,938 ballots (31.2 percent). Burton's running mate, Billy Guin, polled 43.7 percent in his second contest—the first was in 1970—against incumbent Democratic Public Utilities Commissioner William "Bill" Collins, who had succeeded Allen in the position. Guin, the former school board member, a civil engineer and a businessman, also entered a special election for utilities commissioner in 1977, when Collins resigned the post. Guin won with 51 percent of the vote and served the remaining year and a half of Collins' second term. He implemented many reforms in the department and then ran unsuccessfully in 1978 as a Republican candidate for mayor under the new form of city government.

Allen did not seek a third term in 1978, although he was eligible to have done so. Several factors are believed to have contributed to his decision to step down: (1) troubles in public utilities department, which Guin had largely rectified, (2) an ill-fated plan to purchase new city water meters, and (3) his tenure as a full-time city official had already reached 16 years.

In 1978, Shreveport changed from the commission system to the mayor-council single-member district format with term limits. The newly-elected mayor, Democrat William Thomas "Bill" Hanna, a former automobile dealer, hence exerted executive powers to a "legislative" council of seven members, where a divided 4-3 vote could often prove decisive. Hanna was elected as the "reform" candidate.

Allen's legacy

In addition to his political activities, Allen was a strong civic leader. He was a member of the Louisiana State Fair Board, chairman of the State Fair Stadium Commission, and a commissioner of the Louisiana Superdome

Louisiana Superdome

The Mercedes-Benz Superdome, previously known as the Louisiana Superdome and colloquially known as the Superdome, is a sports and exhibition arena located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA...

 in New Orleans. He was vice president of the Red River

Red River (Mississippi watershed)

The Red River, or sometimes the Red River of the South, is a major tributary of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers in the southern United States of America. The river gains its name from the red-bed country of its watershed. It is one of several rivers with that name...

 Valley Association, which pushed successfully for the navigation of the Red River south of Shreveport to the junction with the Mississippi River

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

. He was a vice president of the Louisiana Municipal Association, chairman of the Shreve Area Council of Government, and a member of the Shreveport Airport Authority and the Parks and Recreation Council. He was a past president of the executive board of the Norwela Council of the Boy Scouts of America

Boy Scouts of America

The Boy Scouts of America is one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with over 4.5 million youth members in its age-related divisions...

. Allen was also a member of the ArkLaTex Ambassadors, Holiday in Dixie, Kiwanis

Kiwanis

Kiwanis International is an international, coeducational service club founded in 1915. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Current membership is 240,000 members in 7,700 clubs in 80 nations...

, Joppa Lodge, and the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks.

When he vacated the mayoralty, Allen became the coordinator for planning and development of Louisiana State University Medical Center in Shreveport, having served in that capacity from 1979-1988. Allen even staged a brief political comeback in 1990, when he won one of the single-member council seats under the mayor-council form of government. He served only a few weeks, for he died soon thereafter of a sudden illness in the Schumpert Medical Center in Shreveport.

Allen was twice married. In 1948, he wed the former Mary Miller. From the marriage were born a son, L. Calhoun Allen, III, then of San Antonio

San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...

, Texas, and a daughter, Frances Olivia Allen. The marriage lasted until Mary's death in 1975. Thereafter, Allen married Jacqueline Spell Schober and acquired two stepchildren, John K Schober and Lisa Schober Smith.

Services for Mayor Allen were held at the Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Shreveport. Burial was in Greenwood Cemetery in Shreveport. It was noted in humor that Allen was Episcopalian, his grandfather was Baptist, and Allen attended a Catholic university and graduated from a Methodist college.

Allen was honored by the L. Calhoun Allen Exposition Hall on the Clyde Fant Parkway. The facility was part of the Red River convention complex but was considered too small for conventions but suitable for gun shows and similar events. The acoustics were undesirable for concerts. The facility was hence renamed StageWorks of Louisiana.