'Chocolate' Aftertaste: Bittersweet, Indeed
Latest Controversy Over His Comments Flavors New Orleans Mayor's Visit

By Wil Haygood
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 26, 2006

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin blew into the original Chocolate City yesterday. Everywhere he goes these days, there seem to be things to explain, his words and comments tossed about as if, well, in yet another hurricane.

"Everything I say gets zoomed in on," sighs Nagin, in town to attend the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors at the Capital Hilton. "I don't get what all the fuss was about when I talked about New Orleans being a chocolate city. I mean, I understand the frustration with my 'God' comments. Maybe I went a little overboard. But Chocolate City? Come on."

In the aftermath of the horrific Hurricane Katrina, the mayor has been richly and routinely quotable.

He said, "How do I make sure New Orleans is not overrun with Mexican workers?"

He said to federal officials, whom he criticized for a feeble response to Katrina, "Get off your asses."

He said, "Surely, God is mad at New Orleans. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on the country."

And he said, of God, "But surely he is upset at black America also."

And he said that New Orleans will be a "Chocolate City" again.

The Chocolate City reference, Nagin has explained, exploded when he did not mean it to. The term was widely used by Washington's black radio announcers in the early '70s and referred proudly to the city's majority-black status and its prominent place in the black cultural scene. It gained wider recognition as the title of a 1975 album by the funk band Parliament.

Before Katrina, New Orleans was 67 percent black. Nagin says he was appealing to those evacuated to come back to a welcoming New Orleans. But there were those who believed his comment could be interpreted to mean that whites were no longer wanted.

Nagin says he wants anyone and everyone to return to New Orleans, heretofore known as the Crescent City.

"I thought, personally," says San Bernardino, Calif., Mayor Judith Valles, "with his 'Chocolate City' comment, he was just saying to the people who left -- and let's face it, most were African American -- that this is still your city. I think he meant it in a positive way. But it was politically incorrect, I guess. It missed the proper gesture." Then she says: "I'm a Democrat. That's why I understand the 'Chocolate City' phrase."

"I stepped out there and did something bold and unique," Nagin was saying yesterday. "I created a need for people to try to corner me. I think it's just me stepping out and being right."

Nagin is a tall, confident man with a shaved head and a bright smile. He was dressed in a smart black pinstriped suit and wore a Mardi Gras-like bracelet of black and white beads on his right wrist. A native of New Orleans, he had never run for political office before winning the mayor's race in 2002. He's married with three children. He's got a degree from Tuskegee University and one from Tulane. Before he entered politics, he was a vice president at Cox Communications. Before Katrina hit, much of the world did not know of Clarence Ray Nagin.

"It has been tough," acknowledges Seletha Smith Nagin, the mayor's wife. "It takes a toll on you." She says she has been gratified by outpourings of support. "We'll be okay. We'll be fine."

Nagin is up for reelection this year. He figures his chances are pretty good.

"At the end of the day, people look at my track record," he says. "Before the hurricane hit, real estate purchases were up, people were coming off the poverty rolls."

Many in the city gave him credit for tackling corruption, a chronic problem in the city government. Then came Katrina, and verbal clashes with the White House and with the administration of Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.

"He's a human being. He's stressed," says Camden, N.J., Mayor Gwendolyn Faison, a conference attendee. "How many people say 'God has forgotten me' when there's been an accident in their family? He's human. It's not easy. His city has been destroyed and he's getting criticized for everything he does."

In a brief address to the conference yesterday, Nagin was rueful, hopeful and candid, offering a kind of "Our Town" look back, and ahead, for New Orleans.

"Imagine, if you will, being the mayor of a city where 80 percent of the city took on water and the water stayed three weeks. Imagine that city in the midst of an awful crisis, and 40,000 people are stuck. Then, the cavalry arrives and sends your devastated citizens to 44 different states. On airplanes. With one-way tickets."

He went on:

"Think of those people, who have gone through hell, sitting on that airplane. They don't know where they're going next. Some went to Alaska. And so the doors of the plane opens and after having gone through hell, you are in Alaska. And you see Eskimos and penguins."

The mayor's narratives have often been revealed to be apocryphal. He went on to say he didn't mind the criticism that has been heaped upon him, much of it from inside New Orleans. "I had to be their psychological punching bag."

He cautioned the gathering that the woes of FEMA need to be addressed. He said government infighting must stop. "We don't need to do a dance between the governor and the president when people are suffering." He said too many in New Orleans didn't have flood insurance because they had been told by mortgage lenders it was unnecessary. "We must take care of the people who did the right thing and got caught up in the worst disaster in the history of this country."

He was very warmly received.

Nagin said at the start of his address he would not be controversial. When he said it, a man sitting behind him grinned. It was Anthony Williams, the often-praised, often-maligned mayor of Chocolate City.