Norman C. Francis, a civil rights pioneer and champion of education who played a pivotal role in helping rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, died Wednesday. He was 94.

Community members, activists and leaders across Louisiana celebrated the life and accomplishments of Francis.

“The nation is better and richer for his having lived among us,” said Reynold Verret, the president of Xavier University, which confirmed Francis’ death Wednesday in a statement.

Francis took a high-profile role in the state’s response to Katrina, heading the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which was tasked with overseeing the multi-billion-dollar rebuilding effort.

Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said that after Katrina, Francis “stood in the breach.” Landrieu, who served as lieutenant governor when Katrina decimated New Orleans in 2005, said he often turned to Francis for advice and counsel — including in “his toughest moments.”

“The most defining part of his character is that he treats every human being with dignity and respect,” Landrieu posted on X on Wednesday.

Francis was well-known for his role as president of Xavier University in New Orleans, the nation’s only predominantly Black Catholic university. Francis held the position for 47 years beginning in 1968.

During his tenure, enrollment more than doubled, the endowment mushroomed and the campus expanded. The small school gained a national reputation for preparing Black undergraduates for medical professions and for producing graduates in fields such as biology, chemistry, physics and pharmacy.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when parts of the school’s campus were submerged under 8 feet (2.4 meters) of water, Francis vowed that the college would return.

Multiple civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, honored Francis as one of the nation’s top college presidents. In 2006, then-President George W. Bush awarded Francis with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“Dr. Francis was more than an administrator. He was an institution builder, a civil rights champion, and a man of quiet generosity,” Louisiana U.S. Rep. Troy Carter posted on social media. “He believed education was the pathway to justice. He believed lifting one student could lift an entire family.”

Francis, the son of a barber, grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana. He received his bachelor’s degree from Xavier in 1952. He became the first Black student at Loyola University’s law school — integrating the school and earning his law degree in 1955.

He went on to spend two years in the Army, then joined the U.S. Attorney General’s office to help integrate federal agencies.

Even then, he still couldn’t use the front door to enter many New Orleans hotels, restaurants or department stores because of his race.

“Some people say to me, ‘My God! How did you take that?’” Francis said during a 2008 interview with The Associated Press. “Well, you took that because you had to believe that one day, the words that your parents said to you ‘You’re good enough to be president of the United States’ yes, we held onto that.”

In 1957, he joined Xavier in the role of Dean of Men, beginning his decades-long career at the university.

Francis’s wife, Blanche, died in 2015. The couple had six children and multiple grandchildren.

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