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Moon Landrieu

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Moon Landrieu
7th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
In office
September 24, 1979 – January 20, 1981
PresidentJimmy Carter
Preceded byPatricia Roberts Harris
Succeeded bySamuel Pierce
56th Mayor of New Orleans
In office
May 4, 1970 – May 1, 1978
Preceded byVictor H. Schiro
Succeeded byErnest Nathan Morial
33rd President of the United States Conference of Mayors
In office
1975–1976
Preceded byJoseph Alioto
Succeeded byKenneth A. Gibson
Member of the New Orleans City Council
from the at-large district
In office
1966–1970
Preceded byJoseph V. DiRosa
Succeeded byJames A. Moreau[1]
Member of the Louisiana House of Representatives
from the 12th district
In office
1960–1966
Preceded byJ. Marshall Brown
Succeeded byEddie L. Sapir
Judge of the Louisiana Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
In office
1992–2000
Succeeded byMax N. Tobias, Jr.
Constituency1st district, division D[2]
Personal details
Born
Maurice Edwin Landrieu

(1930-07-23)July 23, 1930
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
DiedSeptember 5, 2022(2022-09-05) (aged 92)
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
Verna Satterlee
​
(m. 1954)​
Children9, including Mary and Mitch
EducationLoyola University New Orleans (BA, JD)
Military service
Branch/service United States Army
Years of service1954–1957

Moon Edwin Landrieu (born Maurice Edwin Landrieu; July 23, 1930 – September 5, 2022) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th mayor of New Orleans from 1970 to 1978. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New Orleans' Twelfth Ward in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1960 to 1966, served on the New Orleans City Council as a member at-large from 1966 to 1970, and was the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under U.S. president Jimmy Carter from 1979 to 1981.

Early life and career

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Landrieu was born in Uptown New Orleans to Joseph Geoffrey Landrieu and Loretta Bechtel.[3] Bechtel was of French and German descent, with grandparents who came to Louisiana from Alsace and Prussia.[4] Joseph was born in 1892 in Mississippi, the son of Frenchman Victor Firmin Landrieu and Cerentha Mackey, the out-of-wedlock child of a black woman and an unknown father.[4][5]

Landrieu went to Jesuit High School and received a baseball scholarship to Loyola University New Orleans, where he played college baseball as a pitcher.[6] He earned a Bachelor of Arts in business administration in 1952 and a Juris Doctor in 1954.[7] As an undergraduate, he was elected the student body president at Loyola.[7] In 1954, he joined the United States Army as a second lieutenant and served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps until 1957.[8] Upon completion of army service, he opened a law practice and taught accounting at Loyola.[7]

In the late 1950s, Landrieu became involved in the youth wing of the mayor deLesseps Morrison's Crescent City Democratic Organization. Running on Morrison's ticket, Landrieu was elected by the 12th Ward of New Orleans to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1960.[9] There he voted against the "hate bills" of the segregationists, which the Louisiana State Legislature passed in the effort to thwart the desegregation of public facilities and public schools.[10]

In 1962, Landrieu ran for New Orleans City Council and lost. In 1966, he was elected councilman-at-large, defeating incumbent Joseph V. DiRosa.[7][11] In 1969, he led a successful push for a city ordinance outlawing segregation based on race or religion in public accommodations, an issue that had been addressed nationally in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[3] As councilman, Landrieu also voted to remove the Confederate flag from the council chambers and voted to establish a biracial human relations committee. He succeeded with both votes.[12][13]

Landrieu as mayor

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Landrieu was elected the mayor of New Orleans in the election of 1970 to succeed fellow Democrat Victor Schiro.[3] His opponent in the Democratic primary runoff was the Louisiana lieutenant governor, Jimmy Fitzmorris.[14] In the general election, Landrieu defeated Ben C. Toledano.[15] In that contest, Landrieu received support from 99 percent of the black voters.[16]

Landrieu greeting the president, Richard Nixon, in 1970
Landrieu as mayor in 1971

On May 3, 1970, the day before he took his oath of office as mayor, Landrieu received a death threat by telephone, but authorities quickly caught the culprit.[17] During his tenure as mayor, Landrieu oversaw desegregation of city government and public facilities and encouraged integration within business and professional organizations.[3] Before Landrieu was elected, there were no high-ranking black employees or officials in City Hall; he worked actively to change this by appointing African Americans to top positions, including Terrence R. Duvernay as chief administrative officer, the number two position in the executive branch of city government.[7][18] (Duvernay went on to become U.S. deputy secretary of housing and urban development under the president, Bill Clinton, in 1993.)[7]

When Landrieu took office in 1970, African Americans made up 19 percent of city employees; by 1978, this number had risen to 43 percent.[19] He also appointed Reverend A. L. Davis to fill a temporary vacancy on the City Council; Davis was the city's first black city councilor. Landrieu also employed an African American assistant: Robert H. Tucker, Jr.[20]

Landrieu obtained federal funds for the revitalization of New Orleans' poor neighborhoods, and he promoted the involvement of minority-owned businesses in the city's economic life.[7] Like his predecessor, Landrieu presided over continued suburban-style growth in the Algiers and New Orleans East districts, with Algiers essentially built-out, having exited its greenfield development stage, by the end of his administration.[21] He advocated the creation of the Downtown Development District to revitalize the New Orleans CBD, and worked to promote the city's tourism industry. His tourism-related projects included the Moon Walk, a riverfront promenade facing the French Quarter, the $163 million Louisiana Superdome,[22] and renovations of the French Market and Jackson Square.[7]

By the midpoint of Schiro's mayoral administration, an accelerating number of building demolitions were approved and other projects were also being contemplated, such as the elevated Claiborne Expressway and Riverfront Expressway segments of I-10.[21] Landrieu authorized the 1972 New Orleans Housing and Neighborhood Preservation Study.[23] Most of that study's recommendations were enacted by Landrieu, including the 1976 establishment of the Historic District Landmarks Commission ("HDLC"), which extended design review and demolition controls for the first time to parts of New Orleans outside the French Quarter.[23]

During 1975–1976, Landrieu served as president of the United States Conference of Mayors.[24] He was reelected in 1974 and served until April 1978.[3] After leaving office, he was succeeded by Dutch Morial, the city's first black mayor.[25] Landrieu was the last white elected mayor of New Orleans until his son, Mitch, was elected in 2010.[26]

After city hall

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Landrieu with the president, Jimmy Carter, in New Orleans in 1979

After leaving office in 1978, Landrieu served as the secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).[3] President Jimmy Carter appointed Landrieu to this post during a major reshuffle in which he reassigned Patricia Harris to replace Joseph A. Califano Jr. at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.[27] Carter chose Landrieu for the position in order to draw Catholic Democratic party voters away from Ted Kennedy in the upcoming 1980 Democratic Party presidential primaries.[27] Landrieu was elected to serve as a judge of the Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1992,[28] and he served until his retirement in 2000.[29]

In 2004, Landrieu was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.[30] His personal papers are archived at Loyola University New Orleans[31] and the New Orleans Public Library.[32]

Personal life

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"Moon" was a childhood nickname of Landrieu's. He legally changed his first name to "Moon" in 1969 during his first mayoral campaign.[22][29] In 1954, Landrieu married Verna Satterlee, and they had nine children; among them are former U.S. senator Mary Landrieu, who served from 1997 to 2015, and the former mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu.[3][22] The family is Catholic.[33]

Landrieu died at home in New Orleans on September 5, 2022, at age 92.[3][34] The cause of death was heart failure after having a heart attack.[35][36] His death was confirmed by longtime aide Ryan Berni.[3]

See also

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References

[edit]

Citations

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  1. ^ "New Orleans City Council members since 1954". New Orleans Public Library. May 16, 2014. Archived from the original on March 6, 2022. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  2. ^ "March 1992 official election results, Orleans Parish". Secretary of State of Louisiana. March 10, 1992. Archived from the original on September 6, 2022. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Yardley, William (September 5, 2022). "Moon Landrieu Dies at 92; New Orleans Mayor Championed Integration". The New York Times. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  4. ^ a b "BATISTE: Mitch Landrieu Hides In The Shadows Of Race". The Hayride. March 19, 2018. Retrieved January 15, 2022.
  5. ^ "Is former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu a leader for this moment of racial reckoning?". NBC News. July 21, 2020. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
  6. ^ "UP003856". Louisiana Digital Library. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h "Moon Landrieu dies; New Orleans mayor led on civil rights". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  8. ^ "Former New Orleans mayor, political family patriarch Moon Landrieu dies at 92". Wafb.com. September 5, 2022. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  9. ^ "11 Jan 1960, Page 2 – The Times at". Newspapers.com. January 11, 1960. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  10. ^ "20 Feb 1961, 10 – Chattanooga Daily Times at". Newspapers.com. February 20, 1961. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  11. ^ "Councilman Joseph V. DiRosa". New Orleans Public Library. January 16, 2001. Archived from the original on October 27, 2021. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  12. ^ "Moon Landrieu: removal of Confederate flag from council chambers 'had to be done'". Wdsu.com. June 28, 2015. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  13. ^ "5 Aug 1967, 7 – The Louisiana Weekly at". Newspapers.com. August 5, 1967. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  14. ^ "Jimmy Fitzmorris, Louisiana politician who lost squeakers for mayor, governor, dies at 99". NOLA. July 2021. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  15. ^ "8 Apr 1970, 5 – The Bastrop Daily Enterprise at". Newspapers.com. April 8, 1970. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  16. ^ "15 Apr 1970, Page 12 – Daily World at". Newspapers.com. April 15, 1970. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  17. ^ "Moon Landrieu's life threatened", Minden Press-Herald, May 4, 1970, p. 1
  18. ^ "Moon Landrieu, mayor who bridged Black and White New Orleans, dies at 92". NOLA. September 5, 2022. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  19. ^ Morial retains racial mix inherited from Landrieu, The Times-Picayune, May 6, 1980.
  20. ^ Eckstein (2015), p. 136.
  21. ^ a b Haas, Edward F. (July 17, 2014). Mayor Victor H. Schiro: New Orleans in Transition. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781626741805. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  22. ^ a b c Yardley, William (September 5, 2022). "Moon Landrieu, 92, Dies; New Orleans Mayor Championed Integration". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 4, 2022.
  23. ^ a b "Wholesale demolition is a discredited approach", The Times-Picayune, February 6, 2010.
  24. ^ "Our Leadership". USMayors. November 23, 2016. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  25. ^ "Moon Over New Orleans". NPR. April 27, 2006. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  26. ^ "New Orleans elects first white mayor since 1978". Reuters. February 7, 2010 – via www.reuters.com.
  27. ^ a b Pious, Richard M. (2008). Why presidents fail. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7425-6284-4. OCLC 213080311.
  28. ^ "11 Mar 1992, 8 – The Daily Review at". Newspapers.com. March 11, 1992. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  29. ^ a b "Moon's rise: The game-changing administration of New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu". NOLA.com. April 19, 2017.
  30. ^ "Moon Landrieu". Louisiana Political Museum. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  31. ^ "Moon Landrieu Collection" (PDF). Special Collections & Archives, J. Edgar & Louise S. Monroe Library, Loyola University New Orleans. Retrieved April 28, 2022.
  32. ^ "Mayor Moon Landrieu Records, 1970–1978". New Orleans Public Library. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
  33. ^ Berry, Jason. "Mary and the Landrieus". POLITICO Magazine.
  34. ^ Pope, John (September 5, 2022). "Moon Landrieu, mayor who bridged Black and White New Orleans, dies at 92". The Advocate. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  35. ^ "Remembering Moon Landrieu Who Transformed New Orleans". Time. September 5, 2022. Retrieved September 13, 2022.
  36. ^ "Moon Landrieu, New Orleans mayor who led on civil rights, dies at 92". Spokesman. Retrieved September 13, 2022.

General and cited reference

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  • Baker, Liva (1996). The Second Battle of New Orleans: The Hundred Year Struggle to Integrate the Schools. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-016808-7.
  • Eckstein, Barbara (2015). Sustaining New Orleans: Literature, Local Memory, and the Fate of a City. Routledge. ISBN 978-1135403324.
  • Hirsch, Arnold (1992). Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization. LSU Press. ISBN 9780807117088.
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Moon Landrieu.
Louisiana House of Representatives
Preceded by Member of the Louisiana House of Representatives
from the 12th district
1960–1966 		Succeeded by
Eddie L. Sapir
Civic offices
Preceded by
Joseph V. DiRosa
 Member of the New Orleans City Council
from the at-large district
1966–1970 		Succeeded by
James A. Moreau
Political offices
Preceded by Mayor of New Orleans
May 4, 1970 – May 1, 1978 		Succeeded by
Preceded by United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
September 24, 1979 – January 20, 1981 		Succeeded by
Legal offices
Preceded by
???
 Judge of the Louisiana Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
1st district, division D
1992–2000 		Succeeded by
Max N. Tobias Jr.
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