[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 141 (Friday, September 2, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E893]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 RECOGNIZING THE HONORABLE SIDNEY JOHN BARTHELEMY, A CHERISHED PUBLIC 
SERVANT FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA CELEBRATING HIS TENURE AS MAYOR OF 
              THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS FROM 1974 UNTIL 1978

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. TROY A. CARTER

                              of louisiana

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 2, 2022

  Mr. CARTER of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, today I rise to pay tribute 
to an outstanding, cherished public servant from my home State of 
Louisiana. I am proud to say, my dear friend and mentor, The Honorable 
Sidney John Barthelemy gave me my first job in city government upon 
graduation from college. As an American political figure, he served as 
the second African American to hold the New Orleans mayoral chair from 
1986 to 1994. He was a member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1974 
to 1978 and a member at-large of the New Orleans City Council from 1978 
to 1986. He is a proud member of the Democratic Party.
  The Honorable Barthelemy was born on March 17, 1942, in New Orleans, 
Louisiana, and was the third of six children (Ruth, Lionel, Jr., Joyce, 
Anthony, Felix) in a deep-rooted New Orleans family, born to Lionel and 
Ruth (Fernandez) Barthelemy, Sr. He grew up in the historic 7th Ward, 
and attended Corpus Christi Elementary School, founded by Saint 
Katharine Drexel, SBS, foundress of The Sisters of the Blessed 
Sacrament; and St. Augustine High School (New Orleans), run by the 
Josephites Fathers and Brothers.
  He then sought to enter the priesthood with the Josephites, studying 
at Epiphany Apostolic Junior College in Newburgh, New York, and then 
St. Joseph Seminary in Washington, D.C., where he received a Bachelor 
of Arts degree in philosophy and pursued graduate study in theology. 
While in the seminary, he worked summers as a laborer in a stevedoring 
company.
  In 1967, having made the decision not to enter the priesthood, 
Honorable Barthelemy returned to New Orleans and became an 
administrative assistant in the office of Total Community Action. In 
1968, Barthelemy married Michaele ``Mickey'' Thibodeaux. They are the 
proud parents of Cherrie, Bridget, and Sidney, Jr. From 1969 to 1972, 
he was director of the Parent Child Center of Family Health, Inc. 
During these years, he also completed a Master of Social Work degree at 
Tulane University in New Orleans, worked part-time for the Urban League 
of Greater New Orleans, and assisted with various political campaigns, 
joining COUP (The Community Organization for Urban Politics), a 
political organization based in the 7th Ward of New Orleans.
  From 1972 to 1974, Barthelemy was Director of the Department of 
Welfare under Mayor Moon Landrieu. Backed by COUP, Barthelemy was 
elected in 1974 to one term in the Louisiana State senate from District 
4, defeating a White incumbent who had held the seat for sixteen years. 
He was the first African American to serve in that body since 
Reconstruction. While he served in the Legislature, he also joined 
Xavier University of Louisiana as assistant director of the Urb-involve 
Program and as an instructor in the Department of Sociology. He became 
an adjunct faculty member in the Applied Health Sciences Department, 
Maternal and Child Health Section, of Tulane University.
  In 1978 Barthelemy was elected to an at-large seat on the New Orleans 
City Council, a position he held for two terms. Sidney Barthelemy first 
set his sights on becoming mayor of New Orleans in 1982, when he was 
re-elected to the city council. Barthelemy received 58 percent of the 
total votes cast. On May 5, 1986, Barthelemy began his first term as 
mayor of New Orleans.
  Barthelemy's administration experienced economic development 
successes, as he managed to bring additional investment to New Orleans 
East, most notably a distribution center to the New Orleans Regional 
Business Park (then known as the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial 
District). This project embodied the city's renewed efforts to leverage 
the existing infrastructure of the Port of New Orleans, then 
experiencing a resurgence by attracting modem warehousing and 
distribution facilities to the city. In the wake of the oil bust, the 
Barthelemy administration most forcefully advocated for the continued 
development of New Orleans' tourist and convention industry. Tourism 
was the only sector of the city's economy to exhibit meaningful growth 
under Barthelemy. Several high-profile wins occurred, including 
attracting the Republican National Convention to the city in 1988 and 
the NCAA Final Four tournament in 1993. Barthelemy also oversaw the 
opening of the Aquarium of the Americas, the Riverfront streetcar line, 
the New Orleans Centre and Riverwalk downtown malls, and encouraged the 
first expansion of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
  In administering city government, Barthelemy managed to gradually 
eliminate the $30 million budget deficit he inherited in 1986. He also 
staffed agencies such as the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) 
and the Regional Transit Authority (RTA).
  Other notable narratives of the Barthelemy administration included 
the visit of Pope John Paul II to New Orleans in 1987, the passage of 
the controversial ``anti-discrimination'' ordinance affecting the 
membership in Carnival krewes, an unsuccessful, city-sponsored effort 
to redevelop Louis Armstrong Park into a recreation park/amusement 
center; the post-World's Fair redevelopment of the downtown Warehouse 
District; and the securing of funding for a new sports arena next to 
the Superdome. Consistent with the city's increasing economic tilt to 
tourism and the cultural economy, Barthelemy's mayoralty also supported 
a large addition to the New Orleans Museum of Art, re-use of portions 
of the former Canadian Pavilion of the World's Fair into the IMAX 
theater, as well as the creation of the Louisiana Children's Museum in 
the Warehouse District.
  Throughout his political career, Barthelemy carried a reputation as a 
quiet and mild-tempered politician. In 2012, then City Councilmember 
Cynthia Hedge Morrell acknowledged Honorable Barthelemy during an event 
at Gallier Hall stating, ``The City of New Orleans would not be where 
it is today if those tough decisions were not made and you had not had 
the fortitude to endure the wrath of the media and the wrath of people 
who did not understand'' that ``good decisions were being made for the 
future of our city''. As a respected former mayor, Barthelemy joined 
other former mayors, Moon Landrieu and Marc Morial, in a meeting on 
January 7, 2006, with parish presidents from the New Orleans 
metropolitan area to discuss post-Katrina plans for regional flood 
protection. He recently retired as Director of Governmental Affairs for 
Historic Restoration, Inc. (HRI Properties), a real estate development 
group based in New Orleans.
  Madam Speaker, I credit my role as a Member of Congress today, 
because of the opportunities and guidance I received from the Honorable 
Sidney Barthelemy. I am humbly grateful for his mentorship, as I 
celebrate his tenure as a leader in the great State of Louisiana.

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