Moon Landrieu praised for uncommon social justice valor

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

Former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu, who died Sept. 5 at age 92, was praised for displaying uncommon courage in advocating for racial justice and inclusion during an era in the 1960s when that was anathema in the Deep South, Jesuit Father Thomas Greene told the congregation at his Funeral Mass Sept. 10 at Holy Name of Jesus Church.

With Verna Landrieu, his wife of 68 years, and their nine children, 38 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren overfilling the front pews of the church attached to Loyola University New Orleans – where Moon and Verna met as undergraduates in the 1950s – Father Greene said Landrieu handled the crossroads in his political life by always siding with the excluded.

Landrieu was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1960 and was one of the few white Democrats to vote against segregationist laws designed to block desegregation of public facilities and schools.

He later served as a New Orleans city councilman and successfully led a push to remove the Confederate flag from the council’s chambers. He was elected to two terms as New Orleans mayor (1970-78), during which Blacks were welcomed in increasing numbers into his administration to run city agencies. 

“There are moral tests at times; they force us to show our true colors, show our integrity, our values, what we stand for,” said Father Greene, provincial of the Jesuits’ Central and Southern Province. 

“Jesus came to crossroads many, many times,” Father Greene said, mentioning how Christ expanded his mission beyond “his (Jewish) tribe, his own people, people who looked like him and ate like him, dressed like him and believed the things that he believed.”

“He could have easily stood for that, but he said, ‘No, Gentile lives matter,’” Father Greene said. “And, he expanded his mission. … Jesus stood in the crossroads and showed what his values were, what he believed in, no matter what the cost.”

In the same way, Father Greene said, Landrieu chose truth and fairness over political expediency. Making those decisions could have curtailed his political future and led to “the loss of friends, wealth and prestige. He stood at those crossroads, and each time he showed what a man of truth does.

“It was pretty damn hard to be Moon Landrieu in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s,” Father Greene said. “We can look back now and say, ‘These were great decisions. These were easy things to do.’ (But) it was pretty damn hard, and he had the courage to do it.”

Landrieu’s son Mitch, who also served two terms as New Orleans mayor (2010-18), addressed the packed church before the Funeral Mass and related a story his dad often told him about voting against “hate” laws of the segregationists in the early 1960s.

“The arc of my father’s life was one of courage,” Mitch Landrieu said. “He was 29 years old and had just gotten into the Legislature. My mother was home with four young children under 5 years old and she was pregnant with me. My father had no one – he didn’t have a group that supported him. He didn’t know anybody. He had a small law practice. But when the governor (Jimmy Davis) tried to pass a segregation package, this skinny, little boy stood up and said, ‘No.’ And that night Leander Perez and Willie Rainach put their fingers in his throat and threatened his life.”

Mitch said his dad told him if turning his back on the moral values he had learned at Loyola from Jesuit Father Louis Twomey and Father Joseph Fichter was the “price to pay” for getting along in the Legislature, “I didn't want to play.”

In 1970, Robert Tucker, who first met Landrieu when he led a peaceful civil rights protest in 1969, became the first Black to serve as executive assistant to the mayor. 

“Moon determined that there were no African Americans (in city hall), and he determined he was going to take that on as a challenge,” Tucker said. “Moon was a social justice soldier. He was untiring in his efforts. He was a workhorse and not a show horse.”

Archbishop Gregory Aymond, who celebrated the Funeral Mass, said Landrieu always considered his family the jewel of his life.

“We gather in prayer to thank God for Moon’s life, for his family, for his faith and for the gifts that he used so well to lead and to serve others,” Archbishop Aymond said. “He has lived as a disciple of the Lord Jesus.”

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