Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:43 PM ET
By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - The mayor of New Orleans apologized on Tuesday for saying the hurricane-ravaged city would be rebuilt as a "chocolate" city and for blaming the storm on the wrath of God over U.S. involvement in Iraq.
The "chocolate" remark, which Mayor Ray Nagin made in a speech on Monday, struck a nerve, as racial tensions and concerns loom over proposed plans to rebuild New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina.
Several of the hardest-hit neighborhoods were mostly black, and many residents have expressed fears that those areas will not be rebuilt while those with more white residents may be. Before the August 29 storm, New Orleans was about 70 percent black.
"If I offended anyone, I sincerely apologize," the mayor, who is black, said on Tuesday. "I need to be more sensitive and more aware of what I'm saying.
"I want everybody to be welcome in New Orleans -- black, white, Hispanic, Asian -- because that's the kind of city that we deserve going forward," he said. "I was trying to, and didn't do it very well, to deal with this whole notion, the undercurrent what's being talked about, and what's being talked about is who is going to come back to New Orleans at the end of the day."
In his speech on Monday, marking the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Nagin said: "This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. .... This city will be chocolate at the end of the day."
Other black leaders in New Orleans said they were taken aback by Nagin's remarks.
"Everybody's jaws are dropping right now," City Councilman Oliver Thomas told The Times-Picayune newspaper. "Even if you believe some of that crazy stuff, that is not the type of image we need to present to the nation."
In his speech, Nagin also said a wrathful God sent the hurricanes.
"Surely God is mad at America," he said. "Surely he's not approving of us being in Iraq under false pretense. But surely he's upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves."
In his apology, Nagin said: "I said some things that were totally inappropriate. I shouldn't have made any references to God as it relates to this city. In the moment I got caught up, and it shouldn't have happened."
Nagin also said he has made the "chocolate" reference several times before, including before Congress.
Reuters
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