At one of our Louisiana Recovery Authority meetings, a group of protesters started chanting about one of the issues we were addressing. Dr. Norman Francis, who was the chairman, turned to me and said he had to go to the bathroom. He told me, as vice chair, that I had to take over the meeting.
“Don’t go,” I begged, as the protests were getting heated.
“When you’re my age and you have to go,” he said, “you have to go.”
Donna Brazile, a member of the LRA, started challenging the protesters. Things went downhill.
I asked a staffer to go to the restroom and find Dr. Francis and tell him to hurry.
When he got back, the room miraculously settled down. The tension disappeared and the chanting stopped. He smiled.
Dr. Francis had that effect throughout his life. He could calm the waters while also pushing for progress. He was not only nice, but he made everyone around him nicer.
Walter Isaacson smiles as he speaks with Owen Kirsten and Ishaan Pomichter in New Orleans, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Staff photo by Enan Chediak, The Times-Picayune)
STAFF PHOTO BY ENAN CHEDIAK
Historically, that helped New Orleans during the Civil Rights years. When he housed the Freedom Riders at Xavier, or when he gathered the Black and White civic leaders of the city in the upstairs room at Dooky Chase’s, he was always able to inspire people to be better.
In 1988, Dr. Francis invited my wife, Cathy, and me to be with him at the Vatican, where he was celebrating alongside Pope John Paul II the beatification of Mother Katharine Drexel. It occurred to me as I watched him next to the Pope that, at least among those who were blessed to know him, Dt. Francis deserved to be in that venerable number someday.
We were fortunate to have among us such a force for good, and we can pray that his memory will inspire all of us to try, every day, to have our course guided by his moral compass.
Walter Isaacson, a journalist and bestselling author, was vice chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.