Employer City of New Orleans Name Larry Jr. Denomination Roman Catholic | Political party Democratic Term 1999 - Present | |
 | ||
Born September 15, 1946 New Orleans, LA Alma mater Xavier University of Louisiana
B.A., Political Science and History
St. Augustine High School (New Orleans) Occupation Executive Director, Human Relations Commission | ||
Lawrence "Larry" Bagneris, Jr. (born September 15, 1946), is an African-American social and political activist from New Orleans, Louisiana. Larry's career has focused on improving government relations with the African American and LGBT communities. Larry currently serves, since 1999, as the Executive Director of the City of New Orleans Human Relations Commission.
Contents
Early life
Larry Bagneris is the son of Gloria Diaz Bagneris and Lawrence Bagneris, Sr., whom ultimately had four children. Larry's brother is notable actor, playwright, and musician Vernel Bagneris. Larry's father was a postal clerk and a veteran of World War II. He was described as a playful and cheerful man. Larry's mother was a strongly dedicated mother and manager of the Bagneris house. Vernel described his mother as a "woman who quietly outclassed most people."
Larry and his family initially resided in the Creole Seventh Ward neighborhood of New Orleans. Due to a U.S. Federal program of "Urban Renewal" of the 1960s, the Bagneris Family relocated to the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans. The move came after the family experienced the detrimental impacts of unchecked legislative initiatives that adversely impacted neighborhoods of color. The program was referred to as "The Negro Removal," which saw the creation of a highway overpass through the community that invited crime and drove down the spirits of property of the once vibrant Seventh Ward.
Larry and his brother attended St. Augustine High School in New Orleans. St. Augustine H.S. is an iconic New Orleans parochial school for boys that was founded with the intention of providing the segregated black-male students of New Orleans with a better education than that which was then poorly provided by the New Orleans Public Schools. It was at St. Augustine that Larry began to realize that he could have a voice in transforming the segregated culture.
Early Activism
Larry's first involvement in racial activism was at the age of 16. He participated in picketing Maison Blanche Department Stores in New Orleans for their usage of Jim Crow style policies. The pickets that Larry participated eventually led to more involved practices such as sit-ins. Larry participated in these events which eventually led his arrest when sat-in at locations such at FrosTop, Walgreens and Woolworth's. Because Larry was only sixteen when these events occurred, he was only held as a juvenile.
While in high school, Larry participated in the 1963 Nation Conference for International Justice in Memphis, Tennessee with faculty and students from St. Augustine High School.