Wake Up: This Indictment is Part of the Relentless Campaign Against Black Leadership in New Orleans

Wake up, people! The indictment of Mayor LaToya Cantrell should be seen for what it is: the latest chapter in a long history of undermining Black political leadership in New Orleans. The charges — centered around roughly $70,000 tied to an alleged relationship with a member of her security detail, Officer Jeffrey Vappie — have been trumpeted by the mainstream media as if they were evidence of some unprecedented breach of public trust. In reality, they are emblematic of the double standards that have always haunted Black leaders in this city. We have been singing this song for so long that we have considered releasing it on our greatest hits album. None of this is about LaToya Cantrell. She may be the current target, but she has never been the ultimate goal. It has always been about Black leadership.

The timing of the indictment speaks for itself. Chatter about a federal probe began almost three years ago in September 2022 when folks started having fits over the mayor’s use of the Pontalba apartment, the city-owned apartment in the French Quarter that that had been reserved for decades for the use of mayors for “official business”. The first real hint of impending criminal charges traces back to July 2024 — more than a year ago. Whatever the feds know now, they knew then. The only difference between July 2024 and August 2025 is an election less than two months away. Wake up, people!

For the umpteenth time this is not about Latoya Cantrell. This is about getting folk, even Black folk –- no, especially Black folk --- thinking and speaking negatively about Black leadership. This is about sending a message to Black leaders who dare to step up that if they do not walk a line, they will face the same.

Let us be clear: $70,000 is not a history-making scandal. Anyone who is making it out to be is trying to pull a fast one. Anyone who believes it to be is falling for an extra wide load of horse crap. New Orleans, which has had more white mayors than Black, has certainly had mayors who engaged in abuses of power with barely a whisper of consequence.


“Black political leadership in this city was not handed to the people; it was fought for and won. It has always been contested. And the ferocity with which Mayor Cantrell has been pursued is a reminder that there are those who would like nothing more than to roll back those gains.”


No one ever talks – at least not aloud – about alleged, yet widely known, ethical and moral missteps of many other former mayors. We know the stories; and you do, too. But no one before Mayor Cantrell has ever been followed, photographed, or videoed. If they were, gatekeepers ensured those secrets were not on the front page of the daily paper or became fodder for federal indictments.

Our intent is not to throw dirt at previous administrations. We will, however, call out the blatant hypocrisy and inconsistency. As recently noted in a social media post by Gary Chambers, a Baton Rouge-area community leader and former candidate for both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, “When you are Black, there is a double standard. And we are held to a higher standard than white leaders are. And we are forced to answer questions that they are not forced to answer. And it is happening right before your eyes . . . right now.”

Of course, Chambers’ comments were in reference to other happenings related to New Orleans politics and the ongoing mayoral race. But his insight is spot-on and applies across the board. Those who control power structures in this city selectively decide who they target and expose and who gets a pass in their effort to maintain or regain power. It is what they do, but it is up to us to recognize what is really happening and to not become pawns in someone else’s game.

When the mayor is a Black woman, suddenly the rules change. Suddenly, every decision, every expenditure, every moment of her public and private life becomes grounds for indictment—not just in the courts, but in the court of public opinion. The hounding of Mayor Cantrell has been relentless, disproportionate, and deliberate. She has not simply been criticized for her policies; she has been caricatured, vilified, and hammered with a zeal reserved only for Black leaders. She has been disrespected in ways no other elected leader in this city has. With the daily headlines and constant criticism, it is surprising she has accomplished anything.

But despite the negative venom surrounding her tenure, she had several noteworthy accomplishments. She negotiated the “Fair Share” deal, which redirected hundreds of millions of dollars in tourism-generated tax revenue to the city and restructured the city’s tourism framework to tens of millions of those dollars to the city’s culture bearers – the musicians, artists, Mardi Gras Indians and the like that are the city’s lifeblood, instead of a singular focus on tourism marketing. Her administration advanced plans to redevelop Lincoln Beach, which has languished for decades. At the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic, during which the United States was cursed with a president who thought it was a hoax, Mayor Cantrell took one of the most aggressive stances in the South early in the pandemic, implementing strict public health mandates when other leaders hesitated, prioritizing and protecting front-line, low-wage hospitality workers despite the city’s dependence on service workers and despite the ire she drew from the business community – a move that public health experts credit for preventing higher loss of life. After decades of protest and advocacy on the part of residents of Gordon Park with little or no response, it was Mayor Cantrell who committed $35 million to help fund the relocation of New Orleanians living on a toxic landfill. Gordon Plaza residents had been fighting for this since the 1980s. It has taken some 40 years for the city to help tax-paying residents move off a toxic dump site? And how many mayors have we had in that time?

We don’t mind saying that we have not always agreed with Mayor Cantrell. But anyone set on boiling her mayoral legacy down to the alleged misuse of $70,000, is not attacking her for what she has or has not done. They are attacking her what she represents – Black leadership. The fact that she is a woman has made attacking her easier. The powerful and elite calculated this one perfectly. They understood that they could attack LaToya Cantrell and not only would racist white people join in, but Black people — some misguided and easily fooled, others dangerously reckless and egomaniacal, would add to the fray as well. Since 1978, the plan has been to attack Black leadership in New Orleans. They could not effectively do it under the administrations of Dutch Morial or Sidney Barthelemy. They tried their best with Marc Morial and failed. When they realized they could not control the Black leaders that were elected, they crafted a false narrative of entrenched corruption in city hall to get a Black person they thought they could control elected. They handpicked a Black “knight in shining armor” to be the next mayor, choosing Ray Nagin to carry their water. But he strayed from their script, vowing that New Orleans would remain a “chocolate city” in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And to top that, he had the audacity for the first time in the city’s history, to select two Black-owned firms as prime players for city contracts that are among the largest New Orleans awards. As a result, they took him down, weakening Black leadership along the way.

They almost succeeded. After 32 years of Black leadership at the highest level in city hall, New Orleans elected its first white mayor. But it was short-lived; and when it became clear that the city would have another Black mayor, the business establishment and the city’s elite once again hitched their wagon to the candidate they thought they could control — someone from outside the city’s historic Black power structure.

In fact, it seems to us that finding and funding a Black candidate they think they can control just to take that person down and Black political agency along with them, when the time is right, has been the plan of the elite business community and powerbrokers all long.

Perhaps we need to be reminded that during her first campaign for mayor, the gatekeepers and shot callers made news stories about then-Councilwoman Cantrell's alleged misuse of a city-issued credit disappear overnight. Think back to the 2017 campaign for mayor. It was all anyone could talk about; then the story just went away. One day newsprint and airwaves were filled with stories about restaurant tabs, t-shirts, tampons, and turkeys purchased with a city credit card. Then, radio silence. The story disappears from headlines. Cantrell wins the primary and the runoff. And a few months later, then state attorney general Jeff Landry quietly announces that there would be no criminal charges. If you thought for one minute that the story stopped because the media liked her, you are beyond naive. The folk that wanted to use Cantrell to control city hall needed the mainstream media to stop hammering her to secure her victory against Desiree Charbonnet. If they were going to be stuck with another Black mayor, the city' first Black, female mayor, it could not be one insulated from their reach as Charbonnet likely would have been because of her connections to the entrenched Black political network. 

The New Orleans Tribune cautioned eight years ago something was not right. Mainstream newspapers do not drop what appears, at least at face value, to be a legitimate news story about misconduct because they are altruistic and want to cut elected officials a break. No, there was an ulterior motive. The stakes were larger than LaToya Cantrell. 

And they still are. This is about power in New Orleans. The goal has never been just to bring down a mayor; it has been to diminish the office itself. The strategy has been transparent: weaken Cantrell, delegitimize her, and by extension weaken the very notion of strong Black executive power in this city. What comes next is predictable. Now that she has been dragged through the mud and her administration crippled, watch as Helena Moreno and her allies step in as the “responsible alternatives.” They will usher in a new era—one in which the mayor’s office is neutered, its authority transferred to business elites, commissions, and private interests. This plan is underway; and Moreno, along with her Council cohorts, particularly at-large Councilman J.P. Morrell, one of the reckless, egomaniacal Black folks we referred to earlier, helped orchestrate it. Neither of them should be rewarded for the deed. Moreno launched her campaign for mayor shortly after being elected to her second term as an at-large councilmember by criticizing and attacking Mayor Cantrell to increase her own profile instead of tackling the issues and addressing the problems the people of New Orleans elected her to do.

Wake up, Black folk! We cannot let this dog and pony show keep us from the polls or drive us to doubt Black leadership. We can’t let this be the wave that Moreno rides into the mayor’s suite, not when she has played a pivotal role in diminishing the power of the mayor's office and is the candidate of the very same establishment that has tried for decades to destroy Black leadership. If we let that happen when there are two strong, capable, and qualified Black leaders in the race, we deserve whatever happens next.


“This is not about a paltry $70,000 spent on flights and food in an annual city budget that is almost $1.8 billion. This is about the doggone $1.8 billion, y’all. Wake up!”


Oddly enough, when news of Mayor Cantrell’s indictment broke, staff here at The Tribune were  contacted more than once to share thoughts as "supporters" of the mayor’s administration. That is crazy. Of course, we declined. We will share what we think in the same place we have for 40 years –- the unfettered words of our own editorial. If by “supporters” of the mayor, they are referring to the fact that, without fear or trepidation, we will call out the double standard in the way this Mayor has been treated even when no one else will; then okay, we guess we are supporters. But from our perspective, we are only doing what we have done for 40 years – speaking to, for, and about Black New Orleans, telling the truth about the issues that impact our community from a perspective that will not be found elsewhere. We do not see any reason to stop now. We expect Mayor Cantrell to vigorously defend herself against these charges even as she continues to guide the city in her final months in office. She has work ahead.

So do we. As for the rest of us, it is time to get serious. It is time to peep game. It is time to move accordingly.

This is not just about one mayor’s alleged misuse of funds to finance an alleged affair. It is about whether the hard-won political power of Black New Orleanians will be dismantled piece by piece.

This is not about a paltry $70,000 spent on flights and food in an annual city budget that is almost $1.8 billion. This is about the doggone $1.8 billion, y’all. Wake up!

This is about power and control! The folks that have been scratching and fighting to regain control of City Hall from Black leadership would orchestrate the indictment of their own mothers over bruised knees that were not kissed when they were five years old if it would help them regain control of city hall. Wake up!

Somebody has to say it, so here we go: If Moreno ascends to City Hall, it will not be a victory for reform. It will be the crowning achievement of the behind-the-scenes power brokers with their City Services Commission and other pop-up tasks forces and committees that want to turn the city over to an unelected chief administrative officer. It will be a win for whatever or whoever inspired Gambit to publish a headline questioning whether New Orleans really needs a mayor. It will be an all-out win for the business establishment, which has long sought to reduce the mayor’s office to a ceremonial role while real decisions are made in boardrooms and backrooms. We cannot let them win, y’all! 

Let us not forget: Black political leadership in this city was not handed to the people; it was fought for and won. It has always been contested. And the ferocity with which Mayor Cantrell has been pursued is a reminder that there are those who would like nothing more than to roll back those gains.

The question now is whether New Orleanians will allow it. Will we accept the narrative that a Black mayor’s alleged $70,000 scandal is a mortal sin, while white mayors’ nepotism, patronage, and coziness with developers are just politics as usual? Will we consent to the dismantling of the mayor’s office and the handing over of City Hall to the same business elite who profit from gentrification, displacement, and privatization of public services?

If the people allow that to happen, they will not just be replacing one mayor with another. They will be surrendering the future of this city to those who have never our people’s interest at heart.

Wake up! The last day to register to vote by mail or in person is Sept. 10. You can register to vote online through Sept. 20. Tell your family and friends. If we come together, we can make a difference. They cannot win.  Wake up!





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