NEW ORLEANS - Former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu, whose early and lonely political stands against segregationists in the Louisiana Legislature, died early Sept.5 at the age of 92, according to family friend Ryan Berni. Landrieu launched a political career at the forefront of sweeping changes on race. He was a progressive white Democrat whose demeanor could be combative. Landrieu came from a blue-collar Roman Catholic family, served in the Army and sat alongside the first Black students at the city’s Loyola law school before winning a statehouse seat in 1960. By then, six years after the Supreme Court ordered public schools to desegregate, Landrieu couldn’t go along with then-Gov. Jimmie Davis, who steamrolled legislation to keep students in New Orleans separated by race. They passed by lopsided margins with Landrieu, at least once, the lone “no” vote. In later years, Landrieu became President Jimmy Carter’s secretary of housing and urban development. Several of Landrieu’s nine children continue his legacy in law and politics: Mitch, also a two-term New Orleans mayor, is now President Joe Biden’s infrastructure coordinator; Mary, who served three terms as a U.S. senator, is now a policy adviser with a Washington law firm. Madeleine became dean of the law school at Loyola University New Orleans, and Maurice is a federal prosecutor. (Source: The AP 09/05/22) New Orleans political patriarch Moon Landrieu has died (msn.com)
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