James Perry 2010 - Mayor for a City that Works

It has been four years since the levees surrounding New Orleans gave way in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Four years since the disaster destroyed nearly 100,000 units of housing, displaced more than one million Gulf Coast residents, and crippled the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Southeastern Louisiana.

A few days before attending my 1st Netroots Nation Conference, I decided to publish a diary to announce my travel plans. I also plugged my partner James Perry, a candidate for Mayor of New Orleans, who was appearing on a panel discussing the recovery of New Orleans.

Meet James Perry and Melissa Harris Lacewell Meet James Perry, Candidate for Mayor of New Orleans and Melissa Harris Lacewell, Princeton Professor and MSNBC Political Analyst at the Firehouse Lounge (2216 Penn Avenue) at 5:30pm on Friday August 14th.

Yesterday’s decision by the Mayor is yet another example of politics impeding New Orleans’ progress. What should have been a mechanism to attract desperately needed economic development and private investment has been politicized in response to the Council’s vote against the Mayor on the purchase of the Chevron building.”

Candidate Obama said it best, “Let New Orleans be the place where…a city rises up on a new foundation that can be broken by no storm.”

Watch the Video Made by James Perry as he reflects on his trip to South Africa

Watch/ Listen/ Read an interactive piece about New Orleans and James Perry

Forty-one years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Memphis to help garbage workers who were being denied a living wage. In his last fight, King was fighting for the dignity of the working poor. In order to do so, he built a strong partnership across race and class.

James Perry addressed students who were spending the week doing volunteer work in New Orleans. A student in attendance wrote about the talk.

This weekend, I met a true coaching legend. I was not at a Hornets game or at the NCAA tournament, but at a park in the upper 9th ward. For over twenty years, he had been volunteering his time to mentor and coach kids in Sampson Park. When I told him I was running for Mayor, his eyes lit up. He immediately mapped the best way for a new leader to revamp the New Orleans Recreation Departmen (NORD). He provided practical solutions to simple problems. The lights at Sampson Park do not work, and parents park their cars around the field with the headlights on to provide lighting for children playing football, basketball and baseball. All he wanted was the lights on. He also said that NORD won’t give answers to basic questions about uniforms and travel for the Sampson teams….