Marc H. Morial
59th Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana
In office May 2, 1994 – May 6, 2002
Preceded by	Sidney Barthelemy
Succeeded by	Ray Nagin
Louisiana Senate
In office 1992–1994
Preceded by	Ben Bagert
Succeeded by	Paulette Irons
Personal details
Born	(1958-01-03) January 3, 1958 (age 54) New Orleans, Louisiana
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Michelle Miller
Profession	President and Chief Executive Officer, National Urban League
Religion	Roman Catholic

Marc Haydel Morial (born January 3, 1958) is an American political and civic leader and the current president of the National Urban League. Morial served as mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana from 1994 to 2002.^[1] He is married to Michelle Miller, who has won awards as a CBS News Correspondent.^[2]

Early life and educations[link]

Marc Morial grew up in New Orleans, in the 7th ward. He is the son of New Orleans' first African-American mayor, the late Ernest N. "Dutch" Morial, and teacher Sybil (Haydel) Morial. He is the second of five children. Morial graduated from Jesuit High School in 1976, then received a bachelor's degree in economics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1980. Morial joined Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Morial next earned a J.D. law degree in 1983 from Georgetown University in Washington, DC.^[3]

Career[link]

Morial opened a private law practice in New Orleans. He also served as a board member for the Louisiana American Civil Liberties Union from 1986 to 1988.

After an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1990, in which he came in second place and was defeated in a runoff by Bill Jefferson, Morial ran for the Louisiana state senate in 1992. He won and served until 1994.

He ran for mayor of New Orleans in 1994 and followed his father by being elected. He ran again in 1998 and was re-elected. One of his opponents in the 1994 mayoral election was Mitch Landrieu, also the son of a former mayor. Landrieu was elected Mayor of New Orleans in 2010.^[4]

Morial as mayor[link]

In the 1994 election for mayor, Morial defeated Donald Mintz with 54% of the vote.^[5] He campaigned with the promise to “clean out City Hall with a shovel not a broom.” The issue of endemic corruption in the city's Police Department was addressed after Morial hired Richard Pennington as Police Superintendent. On Pennington's first day of work, Morial introduced the new superintendent to investigators from the FBI. Together they worked to rout out corruption in the New Orleans Police Department. During the first seven years of his time as mayor, Morial’s approval rating stayed at or near 70%.^[6][7]

The growth of the city's tourist and convention sector accelerated appreciably during Morial's mayoralty, boosted in part by the general economic growth of the United States in the late 1990s. Tourism boomed during Marc Morial's mayoralty; the city’s downtown core saw the construction of 14 new hotels during his tenure. This development was due in part to the much-publicized reduction in New Orleans’ high crime rate through the effective leadership of Morial’s Superintendent of Police, Richard Pennington. Of particular significance was the 60% reduction achieved in the city’s violent crime rate.^{[citation needed]} These real gains enabled a resurgence of interest and investment in the city's older historic neighborhoods. New Orleans benefited from an increase in downtown population. The number of households within the city limits stabilized for the first time since beginning their decline in the 1960s, a significant accomplishment. Morial also secured bond issues for street improvements, the Canal Street streetcar line, and an expansion of the city’s convention center.

Morial worked to institute fairness into the city's contracting policies. He reached out to black-owned businesses, encouraging them to apply for contracts. He also enforced the city’s residency rule for police officers and other city workers, which had previously been unevenly enforced.^[8]

Two of the most well-known accomplishments of his administration dealt with professional sports: NBA basketball returned to the city after Morial orchestrated negotiations for the league's Charlotte Hornets to relocate there. Secondly, following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Morial persuaded the organizers of a large automotive exposition to change its date so that Super Bowl XXXVI (held at the Louisiana Superdome) could be played one week later than originally scheduled, enabling the NFL to keep its post-season tournament fully intact. The week of regular-season games slated to be played on the weekend following the attacks had to be postponed and was transferred to the end of the regular season.

Based on his achievements in reducing crime and reforming the police department, Morial easily won re-election to a second term in 1998 New Orleans Mayoral Election. In the 1998 Mayoral Election, Morial received 79% of the votes, while his opponents Paul D. Borrello received 1% and Kathleen Cresson received 20%.^{[9][10][11][12]} Like his father, Dutch Morial, Marc Morial made an attempt to amend the city charter to run for a third term as mayor in 2002. It was tied to his campaign to save the New Orleans Public School System by assuming control of the city's public schools to turn around their performance. He was trying the approach of other mayors, such as Richard M. Daley in Chicago. But, 61% of the voters rejected the proposed amendment to the New Orleans City Charter.^[13]

From 2001 to 2002, Morial was President of the United States Conference of Mayors.^[14]

After city hall[link]

After serving as mayor, Morial was selected as President and CEO of the National Urban League, one of the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organizations. His tenure began on May 15, 2003. Morial was mentioned as a possible candidate for Governor of Louisiana in 2011. He did not run for the seat.

Morial served as a member of the Debt Reduction Task Force at the Bipartisan Policy Center.^[15]

In 2012, Morial was appointed to the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability.^[16]

References[link]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (February 2012)

	New Orleans portal
	Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marc Morial

External Links/Sources[link]

• Marc H. Morial, Biography
• National Urbal League
• Entry for Marc Morial at NNDB.
• Marc Morial interview, Tavis Smiley show
• Campbell-Rock, C.C. “The Legacy of New Orleans’ African-American Mayors” The New Orleans Tribune, January 2004.
• Clanton, Brett. “Mayor measured on management, leadership skills.” New Orleans CityBusiness, October 15, 2001.
• “Commentary” Gambit Weekly, October 30, 2001.

Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton, November 2007
Born	Alfred Charles Sharpton, Jr. (1954-10-03) October 3, 1954 (age 57) Brooklyn, New York, US
Residence	New York, NY
Occupation	Baptist minister, civil rights/social justice activist, radio and television talk show host
Political party	Democratic
Religion	Baptist
Spouse	Kathy Jordan

Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton, Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host.^[1][2] In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election. He hosts his own radio talk show, Keepin' It Real,^[3] and he makes regular guest appearances on Fox News (such as The O'Reilly Factor)^[4][5][6] CNN, and MSNBC. In 2011, he was named the host of MSNBC's PoliticsNation, a nightly talk show.^[7]

Sharpton's supporters praise "his ability and willingness to defy the power structure that is seen as the cause of their suffering"^[8] and consider him "a man who is willing to tell it like it is".^[8] Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, a one-time foe, said that Sharpton deserves the respect he enjoys among African Americans: "He is willing to go to jail for them, and he is there when they need him."^[9]

His critics describe him as "a political radical who is to blame, in part, for the deterioration of race relations".^[10] Sociologist Orlando Patterson has referred to him as a racial arsonist,^[11] while liberal columnist Derrick Z. Jackson has called him the black equivalent of Richard Nixon and Pat Robertson.^[11] Sharpton sees much of the criticism as a sign of his effectiveness. "In many ways, what they consider criticism is complimenting my job," he said. "An activist's job is to make public civil rights issues until there can be a climate for change."^[12]

Early life[link]

Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. was born in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, to Ada (née Richards) and Alfred Charles Sharpton, Sr.^[13][14] He preached his first sermon at the age of four and toured with gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.^[15]

In 1963, Sharpton's father left his wife to have a relationship with Al Sharpton's half-sister. Ada Sharpton took a job as a maid, but her income was so low that the family qualified for welfare and had to move from middle class Hollis, Queens, to the public housing projects in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn.^[16]

Sharpton graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn, and attended Brooklyn College, dropping out after two years in 1975.^[17] He became a tour manager for James Brown in 1973.^[18]

Activism[link]

Wikinews has related news: Al Sharpton speaks out on race, rights and what bothers him about his critics

In 1969, Sharpton was appointed by Jesse Jackson as youth director of Operation Breadbasket, a group that focused on the promotion of new and better jobs for African-Americans.^[19]

In 1971, Sharpton founded the National Youth Movement to raise resources for impoverished youth.^[20]

Bernhard Goetz[link]

Bernhard Goetz shot four African-American men on a New York subway train on December 22, 1984, when they approached him and allegedly tried to rob him. At his trial Goetz was cleared of all charges except criminal possession of a weapon. Sharpton led several marches protesting what he saw as the weak prosecution of the case.^[21]

Sharpton and other civil rights leaders said Goetz's actions were racist and requested a federal civil rights investigation.^[22] A federal investigation concluded the shooting was due to an attempted robbery and not race.^[23]

Howard Beach[link]

On December 20, 1986, three African-American men were assaulted in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens by a mob of white men. The three men were chased by their attackers onto the Belt Parkway, where one of them, Michael Griffith, was struck and killed by a passing motorist.^[24]

A week later, on December 27, Sharpton led 1,200 demonstrators on a march through the streets of Howard Beach. Residents of the neighborhood, who were overwhelmingly white, screamed racial epithets at the protesters, who were largely black.^[25] Sharpton's role in the case, which led to the appointment of a special prosecutor by New York Governor Mario Cuomo after the two surviving victims refused to co-operate with the Queens district attorney, helped propel him to national prominence.

Bensonhurst[link]

Sharpton leading the first protest march over the death of Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst, 1989

On August 23, 1989, four African-American teenagers were beaten by a group of 10 to 30 white Italian-American youths in Bensonhurst, a Brooklyn neighborhood. One Bensonhurst resident, armed with a handgun, shot and killed sixteen-year-old Yusef Hawkins.

In the weeks following the assault and murder, Sharpton led several marches through Bensonhurst. The first protest, just days after the incident, was greeted by neighborhood residents shouting "Niggers go home" and holding watermelons to mock the demonstrators.^[26]