The legacy: Born on St. Louis Plantation near Plaquemine, Blondie Labouisse came to politics naturally: Her father, Edward James Gay, was a state senator after World War I. She didn't become politically active, however, until the 1939-40 gubernatorial contest, when she started ringing doorbells in the Garden District and the nearby St. Thomas housing development and found she liked it. She soon became a player in Democratic Party politics, serving on the party's State Central Committee for eight years, in addition to serving on other civic boards and helping establish such organizations as the Friends of the Library. A group she convened in her living room to work on such topics as teenage pregnancy, medical care and homelessness became known as Blondie's Bombers. Labouisse received The Times-Picayune Loving Cup for 1990; the selection committee's statement said, "Few show more care and compassion for the community and fellow man." The artist: Queen Hope Parker. The quote: "She believed in a lot of things that were not at all popular with her social group. This didn't daunt her in the slightest. Blondie would just plunge right in ... and things would happen." -- Liz McCarthy, a longtime friend and member of Blondie's Bombers Explore more of Parker's work online at WhereYart.net and in person at the Where Y'Art gallery, 1901 Royal St. TRI-via She acquired the nickname "Blondie," by which everyone knew her, when she was a Newcomb College student in the 1930s. When she passed the Kappa Alpha fraternity house on her way to class, she said members would call out, "Blondie Bombshell! Blondie Bombshell!" In deLesseps S. "Chep" Morrison's 1945-46 mayoral race as a reform candidate, Labouisse was part of the "broom brigade," a group of broom-brandishing women who provided one of the campaign's most indelible images as they marched up St. Charles Avenue, sweeping the street to show their desire to sweep out the incumbents. Morrison won. Labouisse was a delegate to the 1964 and 1968 Democratic National conventions. She organized talk shows on city and state issues for WYES-TV, whose headquarters was a building that her husband, the architect F. Monroe Labouisse, had designed. After the main library at Lee Circle was demolished to make way for K&B Plaza, Labouisse built support for a replacement with a group that became the Friends of the Library. The group successfully put pressure on Morrison to include a new library in a bond issue. In 1969, she ran for the City Council's District B seat. Labouisse was a president of the Independent Women's Organization. When Labouisse died, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu noted her death with a statement in the Congressional Record in which she described Labouisse as "the classic Southern woman who, when she saw something lacking in the community, would immediately step forward, roll up her sleeves, and set about making things right." | Read Full Story |