Fredrick Prejean, the Lafayette civil rights leader who toppled a century-old monument to Jim Crow, died Thursday morning in his sleep, his wife confirmed to The Current.
Prejean attended Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech when he was a teenager and continued his civil rights work throughout his lifetime. He was instrumental in the creation of Move the Mindset, an organization that used public pressure and legal filings to bring about the removal of a Jim Crow-era confederate statute from downtown Lafayette.
That statue came down last year, and Prejean was there to watch it. He died Thursday morning; he was 76 years old.
“Lafayette has lost a legend. Fred Prejean was a fighter. He despised inequality in all of its forms; doing something halfway or without conviction were equally unacceptable to him,” Move the Mindset attorney Jerome Moroux said in a statement to The Current. “Many of us who have had the privilege to work alongside him were inspired by his integrity and courage. He will be missed.”
To read the whole story in the Current, click here.
To see KATC's stories with Prejean over the years, click here, here and here.
Prejean was awarded the Lafayette Civic Cup in 2020; here's the video created for that award:
You can watch the video of the statue's removal, which includes some words from Prejean, in the video below:
