In the vibrant heart of New Orleans, a city celebrated for its rich culture and history, Jean-Paul “JP” Morrell stands as a beacon of hope and progress. Embarking on a self-imposed mission, Morrell, a distinguished lawyer and former Democrat politician, is driven by a profound commitment to justice, equality, and improving life for all New Orleanians. His journey from the State Legislature to his current role as a City Council member-at-large is marked by a relentless pursuit of social and racial justice, deeply rooted in the values of his Creole heritage.
Jean-Paul “JP “Morrell is a man on a self-imposed mission, striving to ensure justice, equality and tangibly better life chances for the people of New Orleans, especially those from communities which have been historically disenfranchised. Such is the moral compass of the man – a lawyer by training and profession, formerly a Democrat politician who represented the people of New Orleans in the State Legislature and now a member at-large of New Orleans City Council, having assumed office in January 2022.
JP (as he is commonly known, given his initials) is indeed industrious in the extreme, with a zealous work ethic which puts other politicians to shame. It is his all-encompassing desire to facilitate human thriving, well-being and fulfilment for all those he serves, regardless of their racial provenance or social class, which is most notable, together with the searing, almost messianic fervour which imbues his speech with boundless energy, like a crusading dynamo.
Indeed, an ardour for social and racial justice not only animates his deportment but occasionally, in the form of a righteous, galvanising anger, gives rise to a temper which, by his own admission, he frequently loses “when I’m speaking very passionately.”
The exceedingly light complexion, the funky, black-rimmed spectacles and the immaculately coiffured salt and pepper beard might all announce him as a man of the “new school,” but JP is very proud of his “old school” New Orleans Creole roots and values. He is every bit a politician for today, but one with grounded, strong principles which incorporate the very best of yesteryear.
Upbringing and Creole Lineage
Born and raised in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward, along with his three brothers and with his paternal grandfather living next door, JP enjoyed a comfortable childhood, but one made infinitely better by the copious positive examples and sacrifices of his parents.
JP Morell is resolutely proud of his Creole heritage, even if he considers his lineage to be a non-traditional one for New Orleans. As he avidly explains, “Most Creole families in New Orleans can trace their lineage back many years through other Creole families. My parents were unique, in that my grandmother is from St. James Parish, Louisiana and she was born in what was the Salzburg plantation.” He continues earnestly, “Like many people at that time, my grandmother was fairer than I am. The rumour had always been that she was the daughter of the last person that owned the plantation, even though she had disputed it for years. My mom finally found out through DNA testing that it was indeed the case. It’s a really romantic and yet also sad story. My grandmother met my grandfather, who’s from Mississippi, during World War II in New Orleans. So, my maternal grandparents were not a traditional Creole family, because Creole families in the city are here for generations – people who can trace their lineage back for centuries.”
As he re-iterates, clearly something which on some level left a painful scar on their family’s collective psyche, “My parents grew up in a city where a lot of people define their identity by tracing their lineage back centuries. Critically in both their cases, there was a broken branch off the tree where they couldn’t really trace it.”
Furthermore, both his paternal grandparents were born out of wedlock, so there was an added sense of his family being slightly different and non-conventional. As he explains, “My great grandmother on my dad’s side was a second-generation immigrant from a French-speaking country. She died before I was born. My dad doesn’t talk about her very often.”
Both of his grandfathers were merchant Marines, albeit from different social backgrounds and with differing degrees of affluence. “My maternal grandfather was a remarkably successful cook steward, and they lived in a nice house, and they bought an even nicer house on Esplanade Ridge. My dad’s father, who was a merchant Marine cook, was poor with seven children. They grew up in the upper Ninth Ward.”
Influence of his Father
JP’s father, Arthur came from an impecunious background and yet managed by dint of demanding work and determination to get through law school while working to provide for his family. As JP explains, “My dad is a traditional Creole looking gentleman. He was one of seven siblings. Some of his earliest memories are of delivering po’boys by bike to help make the family make enough money to pay for things.”
Yet, according to JP, his parents’ respective personalities could not be more different. “A lot of what I do as a person and as a politician is a kind of contradiction, in that my dad is renowned for always speaking his mind, even when no one wants to hear it.” whereas his mum is by nature more conciliatory. “Dad’s a former Green Beret. He always impressed upon his sons – we’re four boys – the need to stand up for what you believe in, even if no one else believes in it. My dad worked for Eastern Airlines after leaving the military and broke racial barriers to secure a position in management.”
To illustrate his father’s unbending, somewhat intransigent temperament and the laudable effect it had on him, JP mentions with overwhelming filial pride that his father was involved in “a huge battle with the state of Louisiana in the 1980s over the drug testing of politicians”, at a time when African-Americans were regularly being targeted with drug tests. As he recounts, replete with considerable admiration for his father’s principled stand, “My dad has never done a drug in his life. He said, “I’m an elected official. I’m not being drug tested. They should not be drug testing people to get housing or anything else either.” He ended up fighting that case in the United States Supreme Court, which duly confirmed you cannot drug test elected officials.”
Influence of his Mother
JP’s mother, Cynthia has equally been a seminal influence in his life, and she has bequeathed to her son many important values which he to this day exhibits in his professional and political career. “Her profession for 23 years was that of a teacher and a principal at McDonogh 15, which was the only public school in the actual French Quarter, in between Bourbon and Royal Street.”
Alluding to her light-skinned complexion, akin to the description of Nella Larsen’s protagonist in her famous Harlem Renaissance novel Passing, he states, “My mom is very fair. I mean, she is the epitome of “Passe Blanc”. She could just walk into a crowd and people wouldn’t even know she was there.”
Irrespective of her shade, or perhaps even more so because of it, JP is full of admiration for his mother’s tenacity and compelling “get up and go” attitude to achieve things for her school. As he recounts fondly, “My mom was the queen of compromise. She was the person who would always negotiate. She was the person who, when the school system wouldn’t provide resources, would go out business to business and get them to sponsor things, so the school could function.” According to JP, she was also “a master of getting all these different people from different backgrounds to work together in this one school and manage all these personalities. She always just figured out some way to work it out.”
Recalling one particular incident in elementary school, inspired by his mother’s desire to “get musicians to teach classes at the school, because she wanted the kids to experience actual New Orleans culture, even though the musicians were the hardest people to work with”, JP recounts in a tone laced with humour, “I remember our band teacher was called Walter Payton. His son, Nicholas Payton, was a very internationally well-renowned trumpet player. And Mr. Payton, who was a famous base player who played Preservation Hall, would come in every day, exhausted from gigs the night before and would lay down in the front row of chairs. He’d have his sunglasses on, and he would direct us while laying down. He could hear when you were out of tune, and he could hear when you weren’t playing. It was amazing because he wasn’t even looking at you, and he would say, “JP, you missed that note.”
A self-acknowledged perfect mixture of his mother and father’s temperaments, JP readily admits, “Those were the two personalities that created me. Depending on the issue or the day, I’m either of them.”
Education
Given that his mother taught there, JP naturally attended McDonogh 15 Creative Arts Magnet School and subsequently graduated from the prestigious Metairie Park Country Day School. Excelling academically with an inquisitive mind, a flair for words and an active social conscience, he then received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama in 2001, before deciding to return to New Orleans to earn his Doctorate in Jurisprudence from Tulane University Law School in 2004.
Decision to Pursue a Legal Career
As with many of life’s major twists and turns, there was an element of serendipity involved in JP’s decision to pursue a legal career. As he freely admits, a smile playing upon his lips, “I really didn’t want to be a lawyer. My dad is a lawyer. I grew up in a household with a lawyer, and I remember how frustrating it was to argue with him.”
He continues, explaining with an abundance of self-deprecation how he came to embark upon a legal path. “When I went to Spring Hill College, I enrolled as a pre-med student, wanting to be a doctor. While I was in my first year in pre-med, I did terribly. I was failing all my classes and my advisor took me aside and said, “You are never going to be a doctor. You are the worst pre-med student I’ve ever seen, but you’re doing well in English and History, and you’re always arguing with everyone in class. Have you ever thought about going into pre-law?”
Remembering his parents’ negative reaction when he called home to inform them of his decision to switch tracks from Medicine to Law, JP fondly recalls, “My dad thought it was hilarious and said,” You swore to me your entire childhood that you’d be damned if you’d be a lawyer.” And my mom did not talk to me for three months, because she was so dead set on me being a doctor. She said, “Another damn lawyer.” She was so mad, but she came around.”
JP initially wanted to specialise in International Law and become a corporate lawyer, so chose Tulane University Law School due to its “very robust international law programme.” He continues, with a broad, infectious smile, cognisant of the delicious irony of what he is relating, “I took out all these loans to go to this expensive law school. Then, just as I was graduating, I got interested in Criminal Law and the job I secured when I left law school was that of a Public Defender, which is about the lowest paid job you can possibly get in law. In fact, it is the lowest paid, hardest working job with the most difficult clients.” He laughs as he says, his recollection of their conversation still fresh, “Once again, my mom was livid with me for not pursuing International Law. And again, my dad just thought it was hilarious and said, “You went to the most expensive law school in Louisiana to take a job that pays nothing.”
Career
Before joining the legislature, Morrell served as a member of New Orleans’ Office of Indigent Public Defender Program (OIDP), providing legal services for clients who could not afford an attorney. Thus, JP’s first job was as a public defender before Hurricane Katrina hit. As he explains, “After Katrina, I came back and re-joined the public defender’s office and was in that complete chaos. Post Katrina, it was absolutely insane. That’s when there was no power in areas of the city. We were processing people who’d already been arrested before Katrina and who had been arrested during Katrina.”
Describing the extremely challenging conditions in which he then worked, he recalls, still somewhat amazed that he made it through unscathed, “We were literally in buildings with no air conditioning, with fans with extension cords running six miles, with rooms packed full of people, many of whom were not in the best shape, trying to figure out what was the best way to adjudicate them, to get them out of New Orleans to an appropriate facility or out of jail at all. It was a complete collapse in the system.”
Ruminating on what the invaluable experience of being a public defender after Katrina taught him, JP states, with a trenchant insight into the failings of the system from the ground up, “Being there first hand and watching how people were treated and how the system didn’t really work was very informative for how I would view criminal justice reform as a legislator and now as a council person.”
Legislative Career Post-KatrinaE
JP was first elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 2006 in a special election to fill the unexpired term of his father, Arthur Morrell, who had previously represented House District 97 for 24 years. Morrell duly served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 2006 to 2008. After being re-elected in 2007, he was selected to chair the Municipal and Parochial Affairs committee, making him one of the youngest chairmen in the history of the Louisiana House. As a House Member, he was heavily involved in post-Katrina Hurricane Recovery under Governor Blanco.
Early in his second term as a House Member, JP was elected to the Louisiana State Senate in a special election in 2008. He then served as a Democratic member of the Louisiana State Senate, representing District 3 from 2008 to 2020. As a Senator, Morrell had a variety of leadership positions, as well as chairmanships over a variety of committees. His most substantial leadership post in the Senate was in his final term in the legislature when he led the Senate Committee on Revenue and Fiscal Affairs, where he crafted tax policy as well as capital construction in a thirty-billion-dollar budget that affected the lives of the four and a half million residents of Louisiana.
Legislative Achievements
JP is indubitably proud of his time in the State Legislature and of what he accomplished there. He says, “I spent so much time negotiating impossible things to happen.”
In addition to helping pass a historic package of laws to increase protection for the survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, he was also responsible for bringing about a constitutional amendment to require unanimous jury decisions in felony trials. As he recounts, with evident pride tinged with humility, “the biggest thing I did” – his role in amending a vicious Jim Crow-era law which had huge ramifications for incarceration rates for Louisiana’s African American community.
“We were one of the two states in the country which allowed for convictions for a life in jail for felonies, with non-unanimous juries. In Louisiana, if you had a jury of twelve people and ten said you were guilty and two said you weren’t, it was good enough.”
As he proceeds to explain with a detailed historical knowledge and grasp of the bigger legal picture, “That was a product of post reconstruction, because we came out of reconstruction and lost cause Southerners who wanted to recreate slavery rose to power. They deduced mathematically that if you disqualified three jurors off every jury, you would account for Black people being on juries. So in In1899, the Louisiana Constitutional Convention they passed a constitutional amendment that said if 9 out of 12 jurors find you’re guilty, that’s good enough.”
Here, JP’s knowledge of legal matters combines with his obvious racial sensitivity, as he explains lugubriously, “That was, in essence, the linchpin which created Louisiana’s industrial prison complex. It was illustrated best in Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman – the whole ridiculous idea of people just getting fed into the prison system until they die. But it was really targeted at African Americans because at that time, our prison system provided free labour, which basically recreated plantations.”
JP concludes, rightly proud of his ground-breaking legal achievement and the positive impact it has had on countless lives, “That law’s been around for 135 years and in a majority Republican legislature in a red Trump state, I was able to pass a constitutional amendment with two thirds of the votes in both houses and get the public to vote for it, while two third majority to repeal it, which at the time, just looking at the numbers, would’ve seemed impossible.”
Thinking back on what was arguably his greatest legislative triumph and how he went about achieving it, he states pensively, “I’d like to think the part of me that’s my mom was like, “You’ve got to find people where they’re at and figure out the commonalities and arguments and how you can work together and I was able to make that happen and be successful.”
Louisiana’s Legel System
Given Louisiana’s history of being colonised by various European powers, it is no surprise that the state’s legal system still bears traces of French, Spanish and English law. However, it was updated by the 1974 constitution, with the result that the state has now moved away from laws in French and Spanish. As JP painstakingly explains, with a judicious grasp of legalistic subtleties, “As far as our legal system is concerned, we’re still a hybrid where we are half common law and half civil law, which is a traditional Napoleonic code system. When it comes to criminal law precedent and common law, the English practice of law really overrides everything else. So, precedent like if the Supreme Court makes decisions on criminal law, which reverberates down the line to everything else. When it comes to our civil code, which is our civil laws, it’s really a mix.”
In Louisiana Law Change is Glacial
On the subject of whether Louisiana’s laws are ever updated or in fact change, JP is unequivocal, sardonic and withering in his assessment, given the egregious, “real life” racial ramifications such decisions invariably have, brazenly stating, “Never.”
He continues both ruefully and dolefully. “In Louisiana, when it comes to the law and legislation, especially on criminal justice issues that affect African Americans, change is glacial. And I say glacial, because it’s so minor that you don’t even see the change till you look back at it ten years later.”
“Three Strikes” For Marijuana Possession
As if to highlight his point, JP then references the infamous “three strikes” ruling with reference to possession of marijuana. As he explains, “In Louisiana, when I was in the legislation, you could go to jail for 25 years for the third possession of a marijuana joint. It took me five years to negotiate with the District Attorneys Association.”
With sobering candour, he then adds, “District Attorneys have ultimate prosecutorial discretion. If they pick you up and they like you, they can charge you with a first offence 8,000 times. If they don’t like you, they can charge you with three strikes immediately.”
JP continues, ever alert to the unfair racial implications of such a ruling and pained by the sheer injustice of the situation, “If you are a certain kind of person caught with a joint, you pay a fine and get to go home. But if you are another kind of person with a joint, mainly a poor, Black person, you go to jail for 25 years.”
In a victory of sorts, JP states with a mixture of pride and relief, “So after about five years of negotiation, I was able to negotiate that first and second offences were both expungable misdemeanours. The third offence was five years, and the fourth offence was eight years, which was still draconian.”
As to how he achieved such a victory, JP relates with a knowing glint in his eye, aware of the racial hypocrisy and double standards at work, “When I was negotiating that in 2013, we were at an impasse, where the DAs said, “We’re not changing anything. It works fine. We have discretion. If it’s a good kid, we won’t give him the time.” And I said, “I’m not going to fight you anymore. I’m just going to remove your discretion. It’s automatically three strikes and you’re out.” He continues matter of fact, “Because if you remove the discretion, which means the nice, clean-cut kid down the street who gets caught with three joints and who’s not black is also going to jail for 25 years. And that’s how we ultimately brokered the compromise.”
No Retroactivity
Moreover, much to JP’s acute chagrin, those currently languishing in jail for the 25-year sentence after a third strike will not be given pardons. As he states pointedly, “Louisiana is not a state where retroactivity is applied automatically. You must do it separately.”
Clearly incensed at the blatant stupidity and explicit contradiction of the ruling, he continues, “Even though the United States Supreme Court declared non-unanimous juries are unconstitutional, they did not make their ruling retroactive. It’s an incredible situation where the United States Supreme Court says, “This is completely ridiculous. You shouldn’t do it. But by the way, if you were convicted that way before this judgement, you stay in jail.”
In fact, he adds, in a muted, almost conspiratorial tone, “There’s a Louisiana Supreme Court case pending, challenging how can we have something ruled unconstitutional and not be retroactively applied? And there’ll probably be another Supreme Court challenge on retroactivity, but it’s not resolved yet. This state is renowned for acknowledging that we messed up and then also not fixing it.” Unfortunately, this argument was rejected by the Louisiana Supreme Court who shifted responsibility back to his former legislative colleagues to address this issue through new policy.
Louisiana’s Death Penalty
When JP discusses Louisiana’s positively draconian death penalty laws, his passions raise and he becomes even more animated, speaking with painful conviction. Highlighting the inconsistencies of the state’s approach to this thorny issue, he explains, “We have the death penalty, and we are a ridiculously anti-choice state that has also very, very pro-death penalty. It’s a bizarre kind of position to have to say on one hand, all life is sacred, except we want to kill you. But it’s the position that the state is held forever.”
In fact, according to JP, the death penalty sentences in Louisiana are largely delayed due to the drug manufacturers. As he explains at length, “Nationally there’s a challenge, in that the Supreme Court has only allowed specific ways to execute death penalties, largely a combination of drugs in a cocktail. The companies that make the drugs have stopped selling them to states. It’s created a bizarre environment where some states that have proceeded with death penalties by obtaining the drugs on the black market, after getting the legislatures to give them a wink and a nod that you can do it that way.”
Yet, despite being a death penalty state, JP is not aware of their being any executions for the last 10 years. He continues to explain, “There’s a lot of people on death row who can be executed, but because we’re not an electric chair state nor a firing squad state, and because we’re a drug state, so they can’t move forward with the executions until they can obtain the drugs legally.”
Stoically musing on the contradictions he sees played out in what for him is a perennially frustrating and emotive debate, he says, “Now there are bills that are introduced every session to repeal the death penalty and they are largely unsuccessful. There is an inherent hypocrisy in the inability of our state to realise how can you be so pro-life and so pro-death penalty, but that is the way people are.”
New Orleans County Council
It was his almost compulsive desire to help others which motivated him to want to join the city council. As he explains simply, “Every time I saw a problem, I just wanted to fix it.”
After winning the election in 2021, JP assumed office in January 2022.
With admirable candour, JP admits that in his early days on the council, he was essentially a victim of his own enthusiasm for change. As he relates with endearing honesty, “The most difficult part about being on the council is due to the fact that we meet year-round. When I first got on the council, I had fifty ideas I wanted to implement, and everyone said, “You have to pace yourself.” Because in the legislature, you have got three months to get everything done. I tried to tackle a lot very quickly in the council, and I eventually learned my lesson. You must pace yourself over the year because this system is not equipped for that. I can’t change all the city laws, fifty laws per month. It would literally implode the city.”
As he continues to explain the difference between how to affect change in the Legislature compared to the city council, he smiles with a rueful maturity. “When you change the law, the legislature disperses it out in a way over that nine-month period where it’s all actually conceptualised and adopted, whereas the stuff we do here on the council is almost immediate. So I had to start slowing myself down, which has been difficult.”
Colourism, Shadism and Creole Identity in New Orleans
As a Creole man of colour, albeit a very light skinned one, JP is naturally attuned to the scourges of colourism and shadism which still blight the city – both forms of prejudice targeted against African-Americans (often by other, invariably lighter-skinned African-Americans) and a direct result of both the shameless propagation of Eurocentric aesthetic ideals during slavery and its aftermath, and the concomitant abasement of black self-esteem. Both “isms” are anathema to him, and he feels strongly that “an acknowledgement of colourism in the black community about how we treat people differently based upon the colour of their skin” is long overdue.
Moreover, he says with a mixture of palpable sadness and regret at the city’s nefarious history of racial classification, “In New Orleans, we’ve been experiencing that since the inception of the city.” Baulking at the use of such antediluvian racialised epithets in common parlance, JP says of his peer group, “I’ve had friends who are not familiar with terms like “quadroon.” And I’d say, “Well, first off, we don’t use those terms anymore.”
He then expounds with distaste on the city’s pernicious linguistic legacy of overtly racialized, pseudo-scientific vocabulary once used to refer to people who were products of miscegenation. As he says, almost with quizzical disbelief, “They used to literally measure your desirability as a Creole based upon how small the fraction of your African ancestry was. For example, a quadroon was someone who was a quarter black, an octoroon was an eighth black. They used to have balls here where you wouldn’t be admitted if you were a quadroon. Brown bag tests were used to determine access to social clubs. The State of Louisiana had a “code of color” that determined if one had more than 1/32 of African blood, you could not be considered white. Historically, Louisiana has always been obsessed with race as well as trying to define it for black people.”
Actively calling out not only New Orleans’s heinously racialised history, but also the old, embedded prejudices of the elite New Orleans families which occasionally still linger in their antediluvian attitudes to heritage, JP states with a mixture of anger and relief, “Those things don’t exist much anymore, but when you look at the interplay between the different families and the city, people in New Orleans are just as bad as Bostonians when they say, “Did you land on the Mayflower?” People here say, “How old is your family in the city? Or Where did you go to High School?”
As JP continues, his frustration at living in a historically segregated city which was once sharply delineated along crude racial lines is evident and intensely moving. “If you look at my family, who are regarded as a political family, we are not like a lot of the powerful families from the seventh ward, because they are from large Creole families with storied New Orleans history. In a lot of ways, it is like being nouveau riche versus being old money. Politically, my family’s viewed as new money because I’m second generation in politics, government and education. Both my mom and dad were both elected through grit and hard work, not because they had a baseline of people or political organizations that elevated them to the position. When my dad first ran for office in 1984, he did not have the backing of the powers that be. He had a mother-in-law who ran an independent newspaper delivery route and stuck his push cards inside the newspaper. He saw opportunity to improve his community and had the audacity to run for office without permission. My mom was the same way. I had a much easier path than they did, but their path as black politicians were vastly different from many of their peers.”
Honours and Awards
JP Morrell has been the proud recipient of a plethora of awards for his legal campaigning. Honours bestowed upon him include the “Legislative Advocacy Award” by the New Orleans Family Justice Center, two time “Legislative Champion” by the United Way of Southeast Louisiana’s Women’s Leadership Council, “Top Ten Legislator by Blueprint Louisiana, the “Acclaim Award” by the Forum For Equality, two time Chamber of Southwest Louisiana “Business Champion”, “Legislator of the Year” by the Alliance for Good Government, the Distinguished Legislative Services Award from the Louisiana Counselling Association and the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana “Justice for Youth Award”. In addition, he has been recognised as a “Top New Orleans Legislator” by Gambit Weekly and two time “Legislator of the Year” by Humane Society of Louisiana – all which not only demonstrate the exceptional calibre of his advocacy, but also the clear direction of his moral compass and the way he selflessly uses it to help those in need.
Family
Councilmember Morrell and his wife Catherine, a pediatric oncology nurse, live in the Gentilly neighbourhood of New Orleans (the same neighbourhood in which JP himself grew up) with their three children, Jude, Fiona and Alexander.
Whilst in an ideal world, race should ultimately have no bearing on love, living in a city like New Orleans, with its tempestuous and often discombobulating racial history, and with a white wife, JP is conscious both of the optics of race and of the vagaries of racial appearance, especially those which can occur from the union of people from different racial backgrounds.
Their oldest child, Jude, certainly favors his mother, but JP proudly explains that prior to his son being born, his wife actively took steps to learn from her in-laws and his extended family how to deal work with black hair. As he says, “Before Jude was born, we had no idea obviously how he was going to come out, because genetics are a lottery when it comes to multiracial kids. Catherine engaged my family how to deal with all types of hair before Jude was born. Then after he was born, she said, “Well, that was an academic exercise that I may never need to use.” It is a comment which not only emphasises how much phenotype, as opposed to genotype, still to this day defines our life experiences, but also how much he loves and admires his wife.
In a telling aside which inadvertently encapsulates so much painful Southern Creole history, and with it a conscious nod to the “one drop” rule, he then describes his children’s relationship to their appearance. “I have children who are proud of their heritage and who readily embrace their blackness, but who have to constantly defend the fact that they’re black.” In the racial gumbo that is Louisiana, such ostensible tensions between genotype and phenotype are sadly commonplace.
Conclusion
With his impeccable legal credentials and vastly impressive track record of tangible, life-enhancing achievements, JP Morrell is an eloquent, impassioned and staunchly principled advocate for a fairer society, one who has for decades attempted to build the kind of city in which we would all doubtless wish to live. He has done so by repeatedly pursuing policies which aid families and which stress the overwhelming need for education to improve life chances.
Like a very light-skinned Creole Bryan Stevenson (the lawyer, social justice activist and death row campaigner, should one need an opposite legal comparison), JP is a man who cares so deeply about rectifying injustice that he is quick to rail against those who perpetrate it and who negatively impact the lives of the city’s most vulnerable and underprivileged – namely African-Americans and Creole people of colour – for whom he has consistently come out to bat swinging.
Throughout the world, politics at every level is often seen as a tawdry, even sordid milieu, one awash with gargantuan egos, Machiavellian chancers and vainglorious hypocrites bent on self-advancement, a space populated by those who think nothing of besmirching the noble role of public office for fiscal remuneration. Thankfully for the state’s inhabitants, the Louisiana political arena is an infinitely better, fairer and more equitable place with JP in it. With his desire to actively listen, respectfully embrace and accommodate different perspectives and alternate viewpoints – a fundamental key to his success – JP is a powerful, unifying conduit amongst divergent voices.
Long may the intrinsic kindness, decency and desire for a fairer society, which he demonstrates daily in his city Council duties and interactions with citizens all over the state, continue to spur him to act on behalf of others. For as long as it does – and that desire thankfully shows no sign whatsoever of abating – the people of Louisiana will surely be the hands down winners with this legal and now City Council champion valiantly, doggedly and passionately fighting their corner.
