Joe Gray Taylor

Joe Gray Taylor (February 14, 1920 – December 8, 1987) was a historian of the American South who published fifteen essays and eight books, including Louisiana: a Bicentennial History (1976). A World War II hero, Taylor was affiliated for most of his career with McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Taylor was born in Tipton County, located north of Memphis, Tennessee, to Bassil Gray Taylor, who earned the family livelihood as a farmer and carpenter, and the former Lennie Fee Shinault. He was educated in public schools and attended Memphis State University, then Memphis State College, from 1937 to 1939. He taught in a one-room school in Tennessee from 1939 until 1941. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Taylor joined...