Louis A. Martinet

Louis André Martinet (December 28, 1849 - June 7, 1917) was a lawyer, publisher, medical doctor, civil rights activist and state legislator in Louisiana during the Reconstruction era.

Biography He was born December 28, 1849, in St. Martinville, Louisiana, to Hipolite Martinet and Marie Louise Benoit.

He was a prominent member of the Comité des Citoyens, a civil society group whose most famous action was staging the arrest and subsequent defense of Homer Plessy in an effort to oppose racial segregation resulting in the Supreme Court decision Plessy vs Ferguson.

He served as a state representative in the Louisiana House of Representatives from St. Martin Parish from 1872 until 1875. and obtained his first class law degree from Straight University Law School the following year in 1876. In 1882 he was made the Special Deputy Surveyor for the Port in New Orleans.

He published The New Orleans Crusader (1889 - 1896) newspaper and was active opposing segregation. In the 1890s he obtained a medical degree from the Flint Medical College in New Orleans. Bystanders saved Martinet by overpowering Ryan and handing him over to the police.