Mitch Landrieu: The Mayor Who Took the Statues Down

The Mayor Who Took the Statues Down

Mitchell Joseph Landrieu was born on August 16, 1960, in New Orleans — the fifth of Moon Landrieu's nine children, the brother of Senator Mary Landrieu, and the inheritor of the most consequential political family in modern New Orleans history. He served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1988 to 2004, became Lieutenant Governor from 2004 to 2010, and then won the mayor's race in 2010 without needing a runoff. New Orleans had been waiting for a Landrieu to come back to City Hall.

As mayor, Landrieu balanced budgets, upgraded the city's credit rating, secured federal funding for post-Katrina recovery, and implemented "NOLA for Life" — an initiative aimed at reducing the city's stubbornly high murder rate. By most administrative measures, he was an effective mayor who rebuilt the city's infrastructure and fiscal stability during a critical period.

The Monuments

But the decision that defined Mitch Landrieu's legacy — the one that put him on the national stage — was the removal of four Confederate monuments in 2017. The statues of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, P.G.T. Beauregard, and the Battle of Liberty Place monument came down after years of debate, legal challenges, and death threats against the contractors who did the work. The crews wore bulletproof vests and removed the monuments under cover of darkness.

Landrieu's speech explaining the decision became one of the most-watched political addresses of 2017 and earned him the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. His book In the Shadow of Statues became a bestseller. Critics called him a revisionist. Supporters called him brave. Either way, he forced a city and a nation to reckon with what those monuments actually stood for.

After City Hall

President Biden appointed Landrieu as Senior Advisor for Infrastructure Investment in November 2021, overseeing the implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Moon Landrieu changed New Orleans in the 1970s. Mitch Landrieu changed it again in the 2010s. The family's influence on the city spans half a century and counting.