New Orleans Elects a White Mayor for the First Time in 32 Years

Barely a few hours before winning the Super Bowl, the annual apotheosis of American football that plunged the city into a crazy night of euphoria on Sunday Feb. 7, New Orleans elected its first white mayor since 1978. With 66 percent of the votes, Mitch Landrieu, a 49 year old lawyer, won the highest office of this predominantly black city in the first round.

A moderate Democrat and son of Moon Landrieu, local personality and the last white mayor of New Orleans (1970 to 1978), Mitch Landrieu led his campaign by taking advantage of the wave of discontent brought about by widespread corruption in the political system, a high criminality rate and the slow pace of the reconstruction efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In a city where the devastation caused by the hurricane is still visible, where only one in three damaged houses received the funds necessary to rebuild, where close to one in five inhabitants have not returned home, electors wanted to signal a new beginning.

The departing mayor, Ray Nagin, an African-American, who was in office at the time of Hurricane Katrina and whose approval ratings had dropped to 20 percent, could not run again after completing his second mandate. But numerous commentators saw in Saturday’s landslide victory the will of many electors to buy back their status of good conduct after having reelected Ray Nagin in 2006 against Mitch Landrieu, who was already a candidate at the time.

The latter also took advantage of his father’s political heritage, his father having been the architect of desegregation in the first city of Louisiana. Despite a late start to his campaign, which began shortly before December, close to 58 percent of the African-American electorate voted for him, according to polls. Two of the main African-American local political organizations, Coup and Life, as well as the oldest black newspaper of New Orleans, the Louisiana Weekly, had encouraged people to vote for him.

“This election is important,” says Lawrence Powell, a historian at the University of Tulane. “While it is too early to speak of a post-racial election, this is a racial cease-fire.” His words are a reference to the “mixed” working groups put in place by Mitch Landrieu and to certain verbal blunders these past few years on the part of local politicians. On Saturday evening, Troy Henry, an African-American business man who finished second with 14 percent of the vote, congratulated the winner by declaring that “Mitch had been the main black candidate” for the city.*

*Translator’s note: Quotes, accurately translated, could not be verified.