(Editor’s note): The following appeared in my email in-box this morning and I was so struck by the heartfelt sincerity of the words below that I decided to post his remarks on LouisianaVoice. His words are a testament to what can be achieved through determination and honest effort – not bullying, false claims or illegal tactics and threats.
Ours is not a perfect world or even a perfect society and the U.S. is certainly no paradise, Shangri-La or fantasyland but it is the best that be found on this planet. As Winston Churchill said, our form of government is the worst there is – “except for every other kind.”
Troy Carter, U.S. Congressman for Louisiana’s Second District, writes not of his election to the U.S. Congress but of his service in the Louisiana House of Representatives. While we still have a lonf way to go in this state and nation to eradicate mistrust and bigotry and while it would be so easy to stress the negative and to dwell on that which is lacking, Carter chooses to focus on the positive of progress made as opposed to the negative of progress still to be made:
When I discovered a photograph of the Louisiana House of Representatives Class of 1932, I was immediately struck by its profound significance — and by the reminder that personal history and public history so often walk hand in hand.
At that time, the Louisiana Legislature was a place reserved exclusively for white men. Jim Crow laws ruled the South, enforcing brutal segregation, denying African Americans access to equal education, fair voting rights, and basic human dignity.
Just two years later, in 1934, my mother was born — into a world where her aspirations would be constrained not by her ability, but by the color of her skin.
She grew up in the shadows of “whites-only” signs, segregated schools, and entrenched systemic injustice.
It was not until 1954, when Brown v. Board of Education challenged the conscience of the nation, that the legal walls of segregation first began to crack — though the true fight for equality would endure for decades to come.
Yet she persevered. Our community persevered.
A generation of mothers, fathers, leaders, and dreamers pressed forward, sustained by the belief that one day the halls of power would reflect the faces, hopes, and aspirations of all Louisianians.
Exactly sixty years after that 1932 photograph was taken — in 1992 — I had the distinct honor of being elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives as a very young man, and as the first African American ever elected from New Orleans’ Algiers community.
Following that milestone, I was blessed to achieve several other firsts:
• The first African American elected to the New Orleans City Council from Algiers,
• The first elected from Algiers to the Louisiana State Senate,
• And ultimately, the first African American to be elected to the United States Congress from the Westbank of New Orleans’ Algiers.
To stand in the same chamber where individuals who looked like my mother and me were once legally barred — and to serve the community that shaped and nurtured me — remains one of the greatest honors of my life.
My mother’s life embodied quiet strength, boundless hope, and unwavering faith.
My election was not mine alone — it was hers as well.
It represented the triumph of faith over fear, perseverance over prejudice, and love over hate.
History lives in the choices we make, the barriers we break, and the dreams we dare to believe are possible.
I will forever be proud to have been part of that living history — and even prouder to continue the work of carrying it forward.
Troy A. Carter, Sr.
United States Congressman
2nd District, Louisiana
Louisiana Voice 