Barthelemy, Sidney John, 1942-

Sidney John Barthelemy (born March 17, 1942) is a former American political figure. The second African American to hold the New Orleans mayoral chair, he was a member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1974 to 1978 and a member at-large of the New Orleans City Council from 1978 to 1986. He served as mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana from 1986 to 1994. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

Born in New Orleans, he grew up in the Seventh Ward, and attended Corpus Christi Elementary School and St. Augustine High School, run by the Josephites, there. He then sought to enter the priesthood with the Josephites, studying at Epiphany Apostolic Junior College in Newburgh, New York and then St. Joseph Seminary in Washington, D.C., where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and pursued graduate study in Theology. In 1967, having made the decision not to enter the priesthood, Barthelemy returned to New Orleans and became an administrative assistant in the office of Total Community Action. From 1969 to 1972 he was director of the Parent Child Center of Family Health, Inc. During these years he also completed a Master of Social Work degree at Tulane University in New Orleans, worked part-time for the Urban League of Greater New Orleans and assisted with various political campaigns, joining COUP, a political organization based in the 7th Ward of New Orleans.

From 1972 to 1974 Barthelemy was Director of the Department of Welfare under Mayor Moon Landrieu. Backed by COUP, Barthelemy was elected in 1974 to one term in the Louisiana State Senate from District 4; he was the first African-American to serve in that body since Reconstruction. While he served in the Legislature, he also joined Xavier University as assistant director of the Urbinvolve Program and as an instructor in the Department of Sociology and became an adjunct faculty member in the Applied Health Sciences Department, Maternal and Child Health Section, of Tulane University. In 1978 Barthelemy was elected to an at-large seat on the New Orleans City Council, a position he held for two terms. While in the council, Barthelemy become known for his longstanding rivalry with Mayor Ernest "Dutch" Morial. In 1979, Barthelemy was elected to the state Senate, defeating a white incumbent who had held the seat for sixteen years. He defeated Bill Jefferson in the 1986 mayoral election to succeed Morial. On May 5, 1986, Barthelemy began his first term as mayor of New Orleans.

Throughout his political career, Barthelemy carried a reputation as a quiet and mild-tempered politician, in marked contrast to his fiery predecessor Dutch Morial, and to typical New Orleans politicians in general. His critics interpreted this as a sign of passivity and poor leadership. Under his mayoralty, the city's population declined significantly, the crime rate increased dramatically, the murder rate increasing along with the amount of drug use. The performance of the city's public school system continued to erode as well - though in fairness the schools were controlled by the Orleans Parish School Board. National trends were also unfavorable to cities during Barthelemy's mayoralty; New Orleans was far from alone in grappling with economic stagnation and rising crime. Still, many of the alleged deficiencies of the Barthelemy administration were already acknowledged as fact by the public by the end of Barthelemy's first term. His re-election campaign in 1990 was marked by widespread criticism of his administration, and of his perceived lack of leadership - but Barthelemy managed to defeat his challenger Donald Mintz in a runoff election in which Barthelemy received 55% of the vote.

Although Barthelemy was the subject of much criticism during his time as mayor, he has more recently benefited from a reassessment of his mayoralty. As a respected former mayor, Barthelemy joined other former mayors Moon Landrieu and Marc Morial in a meeting on January 7, 2006 with parish presidents from the New Orleans metropolitan area to discuss post-Hurricane Katrina plans for regional flood protection. He is the Vice President for Government Relations Emeritus for HRI Properties.