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

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Russell Wilcox is a retired college professor who spends several months in Florida and several months in Rhode Island each year, and whose interests include boating and sailing, political activism, ballroom dancing and bridge. He has an MBA from Harvard, a Computer Systems CAGS from Bryant and a BS from Northeastern. He has worked in industry for EG&G and Texas Instruments, operated his own business with more than 200 employees, and served as Director of the Computer Information Systems Program for Stonehill College. He is a published author of two technical studies, and is the proud father of four children and the proud grandfather of six grandchildren. A holder of two patents in microchip connections and a true product of the melting pot, his father is the son of a Yankee farmer, and his mother the second generation daughter of Italian immigrants who retained their culture, but strove mightily to become Americans, sending four sons to fight against Hitler and Mussolini.