High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Claude Berwick Duval, I (October 24, 1914 - March 3, 1986), was a Houma, Louisiana, attorney and a conservative Democratic state senator from Terrebonne and St. Mary parishes, having served from 1968 to 1980. He is best known for his profound oratory, his accommodation of Senate colleagues, his unsuccessful 1963-1964 campaign for lieutenant governor, and his opposition to the national holiday honoring civil rights advocate Martin Luther King, Jr.