A. A. Fredericks

Albert Asa Fredericks (February 22, 1891 – October 22, 1975) was an educator and a Democratic politician from Natchitoches, Louisiana, who was affiliated with the powerful Long faction.

Fredericks, principally known as A.A. Fredericks, was born in the Clear Lake Community in Natchitoches Parish to Nolberry Fredericks and the former Emily Cannon. He was educated in local schools and at Northwestern State University, an institution which he would head as president from 1934-1941. At the time, Northwestern was known as the Louisiana State Normal College. Fredericks obtained his teaching certificate in 1912. Thereafter, he obtained his bachelor of arts and Master of Arts degrees from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1917 and 1925, respectively. From 1912-1913, at the age of twenty-one, he was a principal of a two-room school in the Sharp Community in Rapides Parish. He taught at Gorum in Natchitoches Parish from 1913-1914.

Fredericks was the county agent for the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service for East Feliciana and West Feliciana parishes. He was the state dairy agent for the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station in 1918. He then returned to Northwestern State, where he was director of rural education from 1919-1934, at which point he became the college president.

In 1932, Fredericks was elected to the Louisiana State Senate from Natchitoches and neighboring Red River Parish, a position that he held for four consecutive terms. At the time state senate districts were not numbered, as there was no "one-man, one-vote" requirement. When Fredericks left the Senate in 1948, he was elected to the Louisiana State Board of Education, a parttime position that he retained until 1966. From 1948-1950, he was also the executive secretary to Governor Earl Kemp Long, whom he had lsupported politically. In 1950, Fredericks became the Louisiana State Commissioner of Public Welfare, a position that he retained until Long's tenure as governor ended in 1952. Fredericks was so highly regarded by Long that he returned as the gubernatorial executive secretary in the last two years of Long's last term, 1959-1960. The versatile Fredericks was also a special agent of the Kansas City Southern Railroad from 1946-1973, an employer of another Louisiana politician, former Lieutenant Governor James Edward "Jimmy" Fitzmorris, Jr., of New Orleans.

On August 22, 1922, Fredericks married the former Marjorie Jackson May. She was the daughter of Thomas Wilson May of Cherry Valley, Arkansas, and the former Georgie Ware Jackson. The couple had one daughter, Emily May Fredericks.

Fredericks was long active in the Democratic Party at both state and national levels. His friend Governor John Julian McKeithen appointed him to the Louisiana Educational Television Authority (Public Broadcasting Service), and U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, who lost Louisiana's electoral votes in 1964, named him to the National Council on Aging.

He was a member and vestryman of the Trinity Episcopal Church in Natchitoches. A.A. and Marjorie Fredericks are interred in the American Cemetery in Natchitoches.

Fredericks is commemorated at NSU by the A.A. Fredericks Auditorium and the A.A. Fredericks Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. There is also the A.A. Fredericks Collection in the Eugene P. Watson Library at NSU, which contains campaign items collected between 1914 and 1964.

References

* "Albert Asa Fredericks", "A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography", Vol I (1988), p. 321
* William J. "Bill" Dodd, "Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics", Baton Rouge: Claitors Publishing, 1991
* http://www.holidaytrailoflights.com/calendar-natchitoches.html