Empowerment Through Action: Marc Morial's Strategies for Community Transformation

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another powerful episode of McUnplugged, and today we're going to get personal and emotional.

My guest today led New Orleans through rebirth.

and now leads a national charge for equity, justice, and economic power.

He's a civil rights titan, titan, an author, and CEO, and his impact echoes from city halls to Capitol Hill.

He's someone who's had a profound mark on my life, and we're going to talk about that a little bit today.

He's commanding, he's the visionary, he is unyielding.

He is Mr.

Mark Moriel.

Mark, how are you doing today, sir?

Hey, I'm good to be with you, Mick.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for the generosity of the introduction, too.

Man, I told you offline I am the honored one.

Man, the impact that you have had, not just on me, but I'm going to say millions of others, it is

second to none.

The man that you are, the leader that you are, but most importantly, the heart that you have and the inspiration that you showcase.

Brother, you mean the world to me, Mark.

Oh, man, thank you for saying that.

And I

look, I stand on the shoulders of others.

I always

want people to know that that animates my spirit.

And

it has ruled my life,

which is

observation of others

who've played leadership roles

in my community that I grew up with, in my family,

but over also on the national stage.

They've always been inspirations to me, and

I just

appreciate the chance to continue to serve and put people first.

You know, in this work,

you have to be a public servant.

You got to love people.

You got to love them with all of their,

you know, good, bad, and ugly.

Because we all have good, bad, and ugly.

So I'm always, you know, honored

and stand on these shoulders of others.

You know, I was a young guy

and because of my father and mother's involvement in civil rights and politics, I got a chance to, I kind of tagged along, saw things that, you know, child care was you come with me to the NAACP meeting, you come with me to the voter registration drive, you come with me

while I run around town.

You know, that was child care.

You got to go.

We ain't got no babysitter.

You got to come with me.

And, you know, in those times,

sometimes you were aggravated.

Man, why am I?

i want to be home with my friends i want to be on the block i want to be playing football i want to be hanging out you know six seven eight nine ten ten years old uh and you don't realize how you were absorbing through observation uh the work of giants legends legendary leaders in new orleans uh legendary community leaders and ministers and labor leaders and politicians that I just got an opportunity to observe as a very, very young person.

And I know now what I didn't know then, and that it was, it was being poured into my, into my being.

That's amazing.

That's amazing, Mark.

And, you know,

one of the things that I pride myself in is having a because, that thing that's deeper than your why, right?

Like, like people probably understand my kids are my why.

My wife is my why, but there's a reason that they're my why.

And I call that your because.

So if I were to ask you, Mark, man, like, what's your your because what's your purpose why do you keep doing what you do I think it's about economic justice

it's it's about

equality of opportunity it is about people having a life of dignity

prosperity

and the ability to use their God-given talent.

You know, that is what motivates me.

That's been my life's work.

Whether government has been a vehicle to accomplish it, whether civil rights has been a vehicle to accomplish it, whether my private law practice, where I represented a wide range of people and institutions, is a vehicle to accomplish it.

That's what really, really energizes and animates me.

And I've got a special, you know, a special affinity for the youth,

a special affinity for you know, young people, because

my career politically particularly was I was always the youngest guy in the room.

I had an early start.

I got elected when I was young.

I was the youngest.

Cleo Fields and I served in the state Senate together back in the 90s, early mid-90s, and he and I were the youngest guys in the U.S.

Senate.

I mean, rather than in the Louisiana State Senate.

I got elected mayor 35, I was the youngest guy in the caucus, the Conference of Mayors.

So, being a young guy in the room, sometimes with a chip on my shoulder, fighting for some respect,

you know, was something that gives me

this real, real idea that, you know, you got to nurture young people.

You got to give them an opportunity.

You got to let them be who they are.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

You know,

one of the things that I admire about you, and this is how you touched me at a young age.

I had just graduated college.

You had just become the CEO of the Urban League, the National Urban League.

And I saw you at a press conference one time, man.

Like I was, I was, I was visiting New Orleans and you were having a press conference.

And I didn't know what a press conference was at 22 years old, right?

Like, I watched and I stopped.

And

you stood to me at the intersection of politics, activism,

and business.

And you're one of the few people that really have done that.

Like a lot of people don't understand.

Like there are people that are career politicians.

There are people that are career activists.

There are people that are career business leaders.

You stood at the intersection of all three.

And it was at that moment that I said, there's a bigger purpose for me because I saw somebody that looked like me that was standing in a room talking so eloquently, but talking with purpose and talking with clarity.

and so much inspiration that a 23-year-old me stood there and said,

There's something more I can do with my life.

That's just touching, Mick, because sometimes you never know if people are watching.

You never know if people are listening.

You never know if

you're having an impact.

I mean, you know, I

was able to, you know, I was a young entrepreneur.

First venture was 15 years old.

It was a summer janitorial service that three friends, we got together.

We cut grass, we cleaned cars, we cleaned windows, we waxed floors in in houses in the neighborhood I grew up in.

And then later on,

another friend of mine, we actually incorporated a company,

and we were party and special event planners, right?

At 18, 19, 20, 21 years of age,

we were event planners.

We would rent out clubs.

We'd cut a deal with the owner.

We wouldn't rent.

We'd say, look, here's how this works.

We'll take a slow night.

What's your slow night?

Wednesday's my slow night.

You take the bar.

We're going to put a $5 charge on the door.

That's what it costs in those days.

And we're going to promote this all over town.

And we're going to have 1,000 people.

And we're going to keep the door and you keep the bar.

And that was our business model.

And we would

put flyers and we'd go to every other club, every other party.

college campuses and pass these flyers out.

And

it was a venture.

And a third venture I had was

gotten the cap and t-shirt business

and won two customers.

The New Orleans World's Fair was a customer, and the New Orleans Breakers U.S.

Football League team.

They had a USFL team in New Orleans.

They were a customer.

So I had these

entrepreneurial activities.

And while I was doing this, I was in college or in law school.

So I was doing this while I was doing something else.

And

know, truly, business formation and entrepreneurship is part of civil rights.

Because what it is, it's about building economic independence, income, and wealth.

And, you know, our

ancestors, forefathers, foremothers who lived from the end of slavery, until the civil rights generation

were incredible entrepreneurs and pioneers.

They built businesses, they built funeral homes, they built insurance companies, they built

construction businesses.

You know, I remember in my

in New Orleans when I grew up, black people could not, they wouldn't sell

houses to black people.

So what black people would do would, and the working class and middle class black people would buy a lot and get a black contractor and build a house.

They would build the type of house they couldn't buy.

Right.

Right.

Get a lot, built a house, and they were black contractors, Mr.

Barnes, Mr.

Gaino.

I mean, these guys were incredible, right?

Because they

were great builders and they built with high quality.

And they used all black.

artesians and craftspersons.

You know, they used black carpenters and black drywall folks and black bricklayers and black concrete people and black guy with the pile driving company.

You know,

we had a

true black economy.

It was, you know,

it was the economy where people were building independence

and lived independent.

We had that.

I saw a census from New Orleans in 1940.

that there were 40 black grocery stores in New Orleans in 1940.

That there were like 10 black newspapers in 1940

because the economy, you know, white, white New Orleans,

you couldn't shop in white New Orleans generally.

And so our folks, and not only in New Orleans, but in Memphis and Birmingham and Montgomery and Atlanta and,

you know, I'm sure in Greenville and Columbia and Charlotte.

Raleigh and Durham, Durham being one of the capitals of black capitalism, I mean, built communities and built businesses and built sustainability.

I mean, it was

something to behold,

you know, when we think about it.

And then when civil rights came, we became much more mainstreamed.

It was about the job in government or the job in the private sector, the job of the company that we couldn't get, that our parents couldn't get.

In a place like New Orleans,

before 1965, 66, 67, a black person could not even be a garbage man.

Right?

A black person could not drive a bus.

A black person's only job in government was as a janitor unless you were in the all-black school where you were teachers and administrators and coaches and principals.

Right.

And so it's, you know, I reflect on that because I think you can't effectively navigate the future unless you have some sensibility of the past.

and all of the work that helped generations of people, you know, get over it, move past it,

and the struggles and the battles that

they waged.

Wholeheartedly, wholeheartedly.

And I'm going to talk about some of your accomplishments now because I know you're very humble, right?

But I think sometimes you need to hear about the goodness of things that you did, man.

Like when you were

the mayor of New Orleans, lowest crime rate that they had ever had, right?

You brought economic growth back to the city.

You cleaned up the

perception of what New Orleans was on a national level.

Like

you did those things.

And

I don't think people understand the brevity of that because it's not like you can just go in there and snap your fingers in a house.

Man, it was hard work.

Yes.

We created a bit of a movement.

Yeah.

And it was a movement to rebuild New Orleans.

Yes.

I mean, and I felt like we had to create a movement atmosphere.

Yeah.

You know,

a movement atmosphere to get people active and involved.

And we tackled the, you know, the violence problem is what compelled me to run for office.

We were having, you know, we had 450 murders, something of that sort.

Yeah.

1993, 1994.

We had a corrupt and ineffective police department.

And all, I drove, driving past some playgrounds,

broken bottles, broken basketball goals.

I said, this is not

going to sustain it.

This is not how it should be.

And it really, in almost a fit of

just passion, I said, I'm going to do something about all of this.

And so I embraced a strategy to deal with violence that was multifaceted.

You know, in those days, people would get in these long debates.

Oh, you know, we need more police.

No, we need more social programs.

We need more of this.

I said, you know, we're going to have more of all,

right?

But

we're going to fix this police department, and ultimately, we're going to need some more policemen.

But we're going to have a different quality of officer.

We're going to have a different set of standards.

We're not going to have this underperforming, lackadaisical

system.

And then I said, we're going to invest in youth.

So that first summer I was, the first summer I took office in May, put together 40 summer camps,

put together

3,000 summer jobs for youth.

And I told every agency in the government, you all are going to contribute.

to this summer jobs program.

Nobody can have their own little program.

And I'm going to have a lottery to pick the participants.

I got no politics in this.

And I had a big lottery, and I got some of the Saints football players to come out and pick the numbers out of the hat.

So I wanted to change the system

in terms of how you did, how you got involved.

You don't have to know somebody.

Yeah.

Right?

You basically, you know, this is this is, and I divided up the slots by council manic districts.

We had five, but it set the template for investing in youth.

We invested in midnight basketball.

We invested in starlight basketball, which was for girls.

We learned when we brought all the young people together that the recreation department did not have any programs for girls.

Nothing really.

So we hired a women's athletic director and created a whole set of programming for girls.

You know, we were just, you know, I was the kind of person, kind of, you know, if we talked, I said, look, give me some ideas.

And if people came up with a good good idea, I'm like, let's go do it.

You know, we're not going to get caught up in the paralysis of study.

We're going to try to do it.

If it doesn't work, we'll

chuck it, we'll put it on the side, and we'll go do something else.

And so we had all of this, you know, youth programming.

And it was contagious because as the city did it, then churches and faith-based organizations decided to create their own camps, right?

their own youth programs.

I mean, so we had this whole almost revolution in youth programming in New Orleans in those days.

I also did something that,

you know, it was dramatic.

I put a curfew in place.

And I'm a civil rights, civil libertarian person.

But I said, too many of these kids are getting killed at night.

They're out.

Look, we're going to help the parents.

Yeah.

You have to be in.

Now, if you're going to work, you got, you're going to accept.

You're going to school activity.

But, you know, New Orleans also has an attractive nightlife.

You know, we got a French quarter.

We got Frenchman Street.

We got all kinds of...

So, you know, people like to be out.

But we had to deal with the fact that we had too many youth getting hurt.

And we did the curfew in a very different way.

We did not take the young people

we picked up off the street to jail.

We brought them to a community center.

We called it the curfew center.

And we called their parents.

Come pick up your son.

Come pick up your daughter.

No questions asked.

Come pick them up.

And it had a dramatic impact.

And so, you know, we were ideating and creating all these initiatives and these programs.

And then trying to do things differently, right?

We were trying to do, so we had to clean up policing.

We had to put police substations in public housing.

We put police officers on bikes.

We put them on foot.

The chief I had, Richard Pennington, was an incredible chief.

He said, I'm going to find some guys who grew up in the desired public housing development, and I'm going to put on patrol there.

He says, you can't put guys,

officers, men and women in these neighborhoods and they're all, none of them have lived in these neighborhoods.

Yes, sir.

You got to pick some folks.

And they're going to be known and they're going to be comfortable and they're going to understand the rhythm of the place.

So they don't go in there like they're a bunch of outsiders.

Police officers are not the military.

You know, they're there to protect and to serve.

Yes, sir.

Military is there to protect and defend.

It's a different mission.

So it was a you know tremendously successful.

Also, it was very aggressive.

about

black business and minority business and women-owned businesses having an opportunity doing business with the city and doing business on major projects.

And, you know, I had opposition from people

in that regard.

And I knew it was just people protecting their own economic turf.

You know, and I had to break that up to the extent that I could.

We had a very successful run.

I left office with the highest approval ratings of any mayor.

in modern New Orleans history.

I won two elections, both by significant margins.

And we just worked every single day.

I had

open door policy at City Hall.

And as far as community groups, and

if somebody wants to come, you know, talk, raise an issue, I'm trying to hear you.

That doesn't mean I'm going to agree with you.

So I was at.

And I also was, and I think I picked this up from my father, you know,

being just a straight shooter with people.

You know, you come down and talk to me.

You're going to get

an answer.

It might be a yes, might be a no, but you're going to get an answer.

Right?

That's it.

I'm not going to play you and delay.

And oh man, I'm trying to think about it.

I'm going to say, look, I don't think I can make that work.

Or, you know what?

Your idea is good, but it's half-formed.

Come back with a better idea.

So we, you know, we did a lot of,

you know, I had an open door policy with the business community, many of whom did not support me initially.

I had an open door policy, and we had a tremendous relationship with the ministerial and faith leadership in the city.

We convened them on a quarterly basis.

We held a luncheon for them on a quarterly basis to talk about the affairs of the city.

We had a great relationship with labor.

Labor, again, we have periodic,

I believe in engaging with people on a periodic basis because

I got to hear what they're saying.

And

I need to hear.

And sometimes I need to hear it uninterpreted by staff and others.

You know, I got to hear.

I got to hear.

And then say, okay, I hear you, but I'm not following.

Help me follow.

So that's the kind of

administration and leadership we had.

And look, I had a tremendous number of great people around me.

Young people, lots of young people, some gray beards too.

a record number of women in leadership positions.

We had the first Asian Americans to serve in a cabinet.

I had the the first LGBTQ cabinet member in New Orleans history.

I mean, I had an inclusive administration.

I called it the Gumbo Coalition.

Yes, sir.

And so that was,

you know,

that was a run.

And

being mayor of a major American city is a tough job.

It is a demanding job.

It is a painful job sometimes.

But I loved every minute of it

because I felt close to the people and the people treat you like you're their you know their big brother

older women you treat me I'm like their son

you know they treat you like like you're their neighbor right yep

and and that that relationship with the people is something I really really treasure

Absolutely.

And you did it with dignity.

You did it with grace.

And you did it from a point of inspiration.

I'm always going to say the most inspiring person I know is you.

And I mean that's my soul.

But you took that purpose.

And I'm going to say you completed the mission, right?

But then there was a bigger mission, right?

The urban league comes calling, right?

So talk to us about

accepting that call, accepting that purpose.

You know, when I got the call to

basically

asking me if I would interview

for the job.

I was about six or eight months out of office.

I begun practicing law at a great law firm.

And the first thing I thought of was Whitney Young and Vernon Jordan.

And I thought of they were role models of mine.

I mean, Whitney Young, I followed his career

through the pages of Jet magazine.

Vernon Jordan, I met when I was a teenager.

And

later on, I met him again because his daughter went to college with me at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mick, can you hear me?

Is it going okay?

Yeah, and so

I thought,

I thought, wow, this is a historic civil rights organization.

This is a great opportunity.

This is the national stage of advocacy.

I didn't know at the time, as I applied and got the job, that the organization needed a serious uplift and a serious makeover.

Generationally, it had become proud and aging.

Very proud, but we had a lot of, you know,

the organization to some extent was operating in

almost in the past tense.

Right?

And

sometimes what happens when you're operating in the past tense, you don't know it on the inside.

But everybody on the outside knows it.

Unless you can confront that as opposed to fighting it.

I had someone who worked for the league the first month I was there said, well, you know,

you want us to brag about our accomplishments.

He says, you don't understand.

That's just not our way.

I said, that used to, that used to be your way.

I said, I believe in

advocacy.

I believe in promotions.

I believe in hype.

I do not believe in, you know, let's just do it and don't tell anybody about it.

And so we led, you know a significant remake of the organization

I mean the predecessors the people who who served before me they were right for those times when I took over I was in my mid-40s and they wanted a younger person and they wanted someone with political chops and and and some management ability and and and I mean the rest is history you know we created so now you know 20 years later the organization is five times as large as it was back then.

We're building a brand new headquarters building.

We'll be moving in in September.

We have seen a dramatic expansion of our programs, workforce development, housing.

We've brought an entrepreneurship program into the portfolio of the league.

We have

expanded our advocacy on the national level.

We have embraced coalition building with other other civil rights and social justice organizations.

It's been dramatic.

And I've said, you know, we have to be there

on major issues.

And we have to be present.

And we have to run quality programs.

The Urban League is unique in that we do civil rights advocacy, but we also do direct services programming.

And that direct programming is really what defines us.

You want a job, go to the Urban League.

You want to get trained for a job, go to the Urban League.

You try to become a a home buyer, go to the urban league.

You are looking for a safe, wholesome after-school program for your child, go to the urban league.

During COVID, we were vaccinating, I think we vaccinated a quarter of a million to a half a million people through a promotional campaign we had.

We have an entrepreneurship initiative where we provide services, free technical services to entrepreneurs.

We serve about 10,000 of them in any given year.

I mean, this is the work that we do, and we've worked to expand that work, and it's the work that distinguishes us from other organizations.

And so, you know, we're, you know, I like to use the term, I say we're sui generis, we're a unicorn in the space.

And some people say, well, you think you can do all of the above.

Actually, all of the above is really singular.

in that we are fighting on behalf of people to build the policy, and then we're involved in the execution of the very same policy and and that's this that's the connective tissue uh between uh the work we do in public policy and advocacy and the work we do on the programmatic side

yeah and you're exactly right like i i tell people all the time i told you i talked to les we talk about you specifically twice a month because For the 23-year-old me, so going back to that moment that I was touched, I heard of the Urban League.

I knew what the Urban League was, but I thought the Urban League had ceased to exist.

I thought it was one of those things like SNCC and Slick that just, you know, it was there, but it's no longer here.

And I remember calling my mom and saying, hey,

I thought the Urban League was no more, but the Urban League is back.

And my mom was like, no, they're not.

Right.

And I was like, no, they're back.

And so I've been able to see over the last 20 years the resurgence the the back in the community the advocacy for what you're just talking about inspiring youths connecting with business owners connecting with city and government officials that you are in my words these are the words of mick and mick only that unique one of one

for our community And I genuinely mean that.

Well, I feel that, you know, one of the other things I've tried to to do here at the league is, you know, work closely with other civil rights leaders.

And, you know, work closely with Reverend Al,

Derek Johnson, Melanie Campbell,

the Legal Defense Fund, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, National Council of Negro Women, Leadership Conference with Civil Rights.

And then we work with

the Latino, Asian, and other communities as well.

So

one of the philosophies that I try to embrace is coalition building.

And in a coalition-building mindset, everybody swims in their own lane, but we're swimming in the same direction.

It doesn't mean that we agree on tactics and strategy for everything under the sun.

It means, and I just felt like there was too much petty personality rivalries,

you know, among African-American leaders.

And I just,

to me, it makes nice talk, nice gossip, but it doesn't get you anywhere.

And I also think that the adversaries

of our leadership, they throw

wedges in between us if we allow that to happen.

And I just, you know, I just feel like

it's counterproductive, but that you can have constructive disagreements.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So for the listeners and viewers right now,

with you leading the National Urban League, what's one shift

that

everybody needs to make that can not only support the Urban League, but support America?

We are in an environment today with the new administration where there's an assault on civil rights.

There's an assault on much of the progress we've made.

Many of these executive orders, efforts to shut down agencies, efforts to purge.

Look, the head librarian of the Library of Congress, Carla Hayden, distinguished African-American woman, was fired for no reason.

And then they say, well, she's D-E-N-I.

Well, you're not saying she's, you're saying she's black.

She was fired

because she was black.

That sickens me.

And so we're in a period now where people have to recognize how important it is for them to be engaged, use their voice, use their vote.

It is not easy to deal with what we're dealing with, but there's an assault, there's really an effort to undermine progress.

And see, in the short run,

you hear noise, but you don't feel the damage.

In the long run, the noise will subside, but the damage will be done.

You know,

it's like a cut.

You know,

it bleeds and then it gets infected.

Right?

And so we have to recognize that in this moment

and that

to assert that is not just about, it's not about partisan politics.

It's not what it's about.

It's about standing up

for some basic American principles.

It is a basic American principle to me that everyone should have fair access to the American dream.

It is a basic principle to me that everyone should have an unobstructed right to vote.

It is a basic principle to me that we should have freedom of speech and freedom to learn

about our history and our culture.

I think there's some basic things that are very fundamental that appear to be under attack, that are under attack.

And I just feel like I don't want people, we can't be weary, tired.

Complacency is our enemy.

Despair

is not a strategy.

Being pissed off and angry is not a strategy

except to the extent that it energizes us to do something.

That's where we are today.

And I, you know, would encourage people to get involved.

If you want to get involved in the Urban League, go to NUL.org.

Sign up.

You can be part of our advocacy efforts and that sort of thing.

You can join a local affiliate in 92 communities across the nation if the urban league is not for you join an organization that's committed to civil rights and social justice be a part use your

social media

to not only post beautiful pictures of yourself

but also to uh uh advocate for the kind of change and community improvement.

But mainly we have to we have to be active and involved.

Get involved through your church.

Get involved through a community group.

So important.

Yes, sir.

I love you more than you know, man.

I respect you for

the path that you have given to me.

And I don't want to leave without giving you the floor, man.

I know we've got...

You've got a lot going on, a lot that's upcoming.

So talk to us a little bit about this gumbo coalition and some other things that you have coming up.

go to amazon go to an online book sell i've got a leadership book called the gumbo coalition go to hbo max there's a documentary on myself and janet merguia a very very uh incredible leader she leads the largest latino civil rights organization in the nation unitos u.s

uh

go check out some of the work that uh we are doing uh but my my appeal to people is to be active and involved uh be part of the work of community yeah things are tough out there.

Some people, I don't have any time.

You got time to send some tweets.

You got time to send some IG posts.

You got some time to put some messages out there.

Follow us, retweet, repost, re-IG it.

You know,

use your social media voice, but get active, be involved.

And then the other thing, too, let's always reach back to the next generation.

Reach back.

And I,

you know, I've got a 23-year-old son son and an 18-year-old daughter.

And my 23-year-old son, I've been, you know, encouraging him by example and by word.

Say, look, you guys now are old enough to go back to your high school and talk to some young guys and just encourage them, right?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Mark Muriel, ladies and gentlemen.

He's been an inspiration for you.

To be in touch.

And, you know, if you want to bring your podcast down to Cleveland for the National Urban League Conference in Cleveland in July.

Go to nur.org for more.

If you want to come down there and set up, let us know.

I will totally do that.

I will do that.

I've got to go.

Luke back in touch with us.

And

we usually have a podcaster's row and

radio row, et cetera.

We will totally make that happen.

We will totally make that happen.

To all the viewers and listeners, remember, you're because is your superpower.

And more importantly, like my guy, Mr.

Bob Morrell says, go make impact and go do it today.

I appreciate you.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Mick Unplugged.

If today hits you hard, then imagine what's next.

Be sure to subscribe, rate, and share this with someone who needs it.

And most of all, make a plan and take action because the next level is already waiting for you.

Have a question or insight to share?

Send us an email to hello at mickunplugged.com.

Until next time, ask yourself how you can step up.