Moon Landrieu
188764
221709755
2008-06-25T19:03:03Z
Coemgenus
203952
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{{Infobox US Cabinet official
| name= [[Moon Landrieu]]
| image=Moon Landrieu.gif
| imagesize= 135px
| order= 7th
| title= [[United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development]]
| term_start= [[September 24]], [[1979]]
| term_end= [[January 20]], [[1981]]
| predecessor= [[Patricia Roberts Harris]]
| successor= [[Samuel Pierce]]
| president= [[Jimmy Carter]]
| order2= [[Mayor of New Orleans|56th Mayor]]
| title2= of [[New Orleans, Louisiana]]
| term_start2= [[May 2]], [[1970]]
| term_end2= [[May 1]], [[1978]]
| president2=
| predecessor2= [[Victor H. Schiro]]
| successor2= [[Ernest Nathan Morial]]
| order3= Councilmember at Large,
| title3= City Council of [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]]
| term_start3= 1966
| term_end3= 1970
| president3=
| predecessor3=
| successor3=
| order4= Member of the
| title4= [[Louisiana House of Representatives]]
| term_start4= 1960
| term_end4= 1966
| president4=
| predecessor4=
| successor4=
| birth_date= {{Birth date and age|1930|7|23|mf=y}}
| birth_place= [[Uptown New Orleans]], [[Louisiana]]
| death_date=
| death_place=
| party= [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]
| spouse= Verna Satterlee Landrieu
| children=Nine children, including [[U.S. Senator]] [[Mary Landrieu]] and [[Lieutenant Governor]] [[Mitch Landrieu]]
| profession= [[Attorney]]; [[Politician]]
| religion= [[Roman Catholic]]
| footnotes=
}}
'''Maurice Edwin "Moon" Landrieu''' (born [[July 23]], [[1930]]) is a [[Democratic Party of the United States|Democratic]] [[politician]] from [[Louisiana]] who served as [[Mayor of New Orleans]] from 1970-1978. He also is a former [[judge]]. He represented [[New Orleans]]' [[12th Ward of 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 1979-1981.
== Early life and career ==
Moon Landrieu was born in [[Uptown New Orleans]], the son of Joseph G. Landrieu (owner of a small corner [[grocery]]) and the former Loretta Bechtel. While his birth name was Maurice, he acquired the nickname "Moon" in his early childhood, and later had his name legally changed. He went to [[Jesuit High School (New Orleans)|Jesuit High School]]. A promising athlete, Landrieu won a [[baseball]] scholarship at [[Loyola University New Orleans]], where he received a [[bachelor of arts]] in [[business administration]] in 1952 and a law degree in 1954. As an undergraduate, he was elected student body president at Loyola. After a three year stint in the [[United States Army]], Landrieu opened a law practice and taught [[accounting]] at Loyola. In 1954, Landrieu married Verna Satterlee, with whom he had nine children.
In the late 1950s, Landrieu became involved in the youth wing of Mayor [[deLesseps Morrison]]'s Crescent City Democratic Organization. Running on Morrison’s ticket, Moon Landrieu was elected by the [[12th Ward of New Orleans]] to the [[Louisiana]] House of Representatives in 1960. There he was one of the few white legislators who voted against the "hate bills" of the [[Racial segregation|segregationists]] which the legislature passed in the effort to thwart the desegregation of public facilities and public schools.
In 1962, Landrieu ran for New Orleans City Council and lost, but in 1966, Landrieu was elected Councilman-at-large. 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]]. As councilman, Landrieu also voted to remove the [[Confederate flag]] from the council chambers and voted to establish a biracial human relations committee.
== Landrieu as mayor ==
Moon Landrieu was elected mayor of New Orleans in [[New Orleans mayoral election, 1969-70|the election of 1970]] to succeed fellow Democrat [[Victor Schiro]]. His opponent in the Democratic primary runoff was [[Jimmy Fitzmorris]], who was supported by most of the city’s political establishment. Running on a "progressive" platform, Landrieu won an unexpected victory by having assembled a [[coalition]] of 90 percent of black voters and 39 percent of whites. Perennial candidate [[A. Roswell Thompson]], the operator of a [[taxi stand]] and a member of the [[Ku Klux Klan]], ran again for mayor in the Democratic primary but polled negligible support.
In the [[general election]], Landrieu defeated [[Ben C. Toledano]], the only [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] to make a serious bid for mayor of New Orleans in the 20th century. In that contest, his pro-civil rights stance was rewarded when he received an overwhelming 99 percent support from black voters.
During his tenure as mayor, Landrieu oversaw desegregation of city government and public facilities as well as business and professional organizations. 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 his Chief Administrative Officer. When he took office in 1970, African-Americans made up 19 percent of city employees, by 1978, this number had risen to 43 percent. He also appointed Rev. [[A.L. Davis]], a prominent civil rights leader, to fill a temporary vacancy on City Council; Davis thus became the city’s first black city councilor.
Landrieu was able to obtain federal funds for the revitalization of New Orleans's poor neighborhoods, and promoted involvement of minority-owned businesses in the city's economic life. He was also involved in the planning and construction of the [[Superdome]] and other projects designed to improve the economy of New Orleans. He also tore down many dilapidated structures in the city’s Central Business District, earning the opposition of preservationists. He created the Downtown Development District to revitalize the CBD, and worked to promote the city’s growing tourism industry. His tourism-related projects included the [[Moon Walk (New Orleans)|Moon Walk]], a riverfront promenade facing the French Quarter, the [[Superdome]], as well as renovations of the [[French Market]] and [[Jackson Square]]. Critics alleged that patronage from these development projects disproportionately aided his campaign contributors, most notably his political allies who controlled Superdome Services, Inc.
During 1975-1976 Landrieu served as president of the United States Conference of Mayors. Landrieu became nationally known as an advocate for American cities in Washington, D.C., and was credited with helping to convince [[United States Congress|Congress]] to bail out [[New York City]] during its financial crisis.
He was reelected in 1974 and served until April 1978. To date, he is the city's last white mayor. After leaving office, he was succeeded by the city's first black mayor, [[Dutch Morial]].
== After city hall ==
After leaving office in 1978, Landrieu served as Secretary of the [[United States Department of Housing and Urban Development]] (HUD).
Landrieu served as [[Judge]] of the [[Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals of Louisiana|Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of Appeals]] from 1992 until his retirement in 2000.
He is the father of [[United States Senate|U.S. Senator]] [[Mary Landrieu]] and of Louisiana Lieutenant Governor [[Mitch Landrieu]], an unsuccessful candidate in the [[New Orleans mayoral election, 2006|2006 New Orleans mayoral election]].
In 2004, Landrieu was inducted in the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.<ref>[http://www.cityofwinnfield.com/museum.html Winnfield, La - Old L&A Depot, LA Political Museum<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
<br>
* Baker, Liva. ''The Second Battle of New Orleans: The Hundred Year Struggle to Integrate the Schools.'' Harper Collins, 1996.
* Hirsch, Arnold and Joseph Logsdon. Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization. LSU Press, 1992.
* Perez, Dawn Watts. “Moon Landrieu: Reflections of Change.” UNO Masters Thesis, 1996.
==External links==
*[http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/A-089/menu.html Oral history interview] by Jack Bass and Walter DeVries, January 1974 (Southern Oral History Program, [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|UNC-Chapel Hill]])
{{start box}}
{{s-off}}
{{succession box |
before= [[J. Marshall Brown|J. Marshall Brown (D)]] |
title= [[State Representative, New Orleans' Twelfth Ward]] |
years= 1960–1966 |
after= [[Eddie Sapir|Eddie Sapir (D)]]
}}
{{succession box |
before= [[James Fitzmorris|James Fitzmorris (D)]] & [[Joseph DiRosa|Joseph DiRosa (D)]] |
title= [[Councilmembers at Large, New Orleans]]
Moon Landrieu (D) & [[John Petre|John Petre (D)]] |
years= 1966–1970 |
after= [[James Moreau|James Moreau (D)]] & [[Joseph DiRosa|Joseph DiRosa (D)]]
}}
{{succession box |
before = [[Victor Schiro|Victor Schiro (D)]] |
title = [[Mayor of New Orleans]] |
years = 1970–1978|
after =[[Ernest Nathan Morial|Ernest "Dutch" Morial (D)]]
}}
{{succession box |
before= [[Patricia Roberts Harris]] |
title= [[U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development]] |
years= 1979–1981 |
after= [[Samuel Pierce|Samuel Riley Pierce]]
}}
{{end box}}
{{USSecHUD}}
{{NOLAMayors}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Landrieu, Moon}}
[[Category:1930 births]]
[[Category:Louisiana state court judges]]
[[Category:Louisiana lawyers]]
[[Category:New Orleans Councilmembers]]
[[Category:Landrieu family]]
[[Category:French Americans]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Mayors of New Orleans, Louisiana]]
[[Category:Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives]]
[[Category:United States Secretaries of Housing and Urban Development]]
[[Category:American military personnel]]
[[fi:Moon Landrieu]]