Boston MA – Two public servants who took extraordinary risks and exemplified the best in political leadership to meet the needs of communities affected by Hurricane Katrina were today named the recipients of the 2007 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.™
Bill White, Mayor of Houston, Texas, who offered refuge in his city to displaced residents of Louisiana and Mississippi, and Doris Voitier, Superintendent of Schools for St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, who overcame federal bureaucracy to rebuild and reopen the public schools despite the complete destruction of the parish, will be presented the prestigious award for political courage by Caroline Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy during a ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on Monday, May 21.
White and Voitier were held up by members of the Profile in Courage Award Committee as emblematic of the many public servants throughout the devastated region who showed courageous and decisive leadership in addressing the human misery and ruin caused by Hurricane Katrina.
Past recipients of the award include President Gerald Ford, U.S. Representative John Murtha, former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora, Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko, U.S. Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, and former Governors Roy Barnes (GA) and David Beasley (SC). Click here to read for more information about the Profile in Courage Award and past recipients.
Bill White, Mayor of Houston, marshaled the resources and goodwill of his city to provide refuge and essential services to hundreds of thousands of people who fled the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. White led a community-wide effort that included diverting convention and event business to open the region's convention center and public facilities to tens of thousands of evacuees. When the federal emergency response faltered in the days and weeks following the crisis, White mobilized more than 100,000 Houstonians in the public, private, business and faith-based communities to help evacuees rebuild their lives with independence and dignity. Houston offered innovative programs to provide more than 100,000 evacuees with long-term housing, job placement services and public education. White, a former businessman and attorney who served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy from 1993-1995, risked substantial public criticism to meet the challenges of a sudden, massive influx of evacuees and the subsequent large, permanent increase in Houston's population. White will be recognized for his political courage in leading a compassionate and effective government response to the disaster.
Doris Voitier began her career as a math teacher and had served in the St. Bernard Parish public school system for more than 30 years when she was appointed Superintendent in August, 2004. One year later, when every building in St. Bernard Parish was damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Voitier worked boldly and tirelessly, without help from the state or federal government, to reopen school doors to any student who might return home. With one borrowed computer, no working phones, and no emergency grant money, Voitier took out loans to hire disaster clean-up teams, secure portable classrooms, and rent trailers to house a skeletal teaching staff that agreed to work for reduced pay. Just weeks after the storm, Voitier reopened the first school to some 300 returning students, out of more than 8,000 who had been enrolled in parish schools before the disaster. By August 2007, just two years after the community succumbed to 15 feet of water, St. Bernard Parish will have reopened five school buildings to serve nearly 4,000 returning students. Voitier will be honored for her courageous fight to rebuild the St. Bernard Parish schools in the face of pervasive devastation and bureaucratic indifference.
“Mayor Bill White and Doris Voitier demonstrated tremendous courage in the face of extraordinary odds and they serve as an inspiration to us all,” said Caroline Kennedy, President of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation . “Mayor White’s quick actions evacuating thousands of families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita most certainly helped to save lives. Despite insurmountable odds, Doris Voitier rebuilt the schools of St. Bernard Parish, making sure the children of her community had a place to learn and grow when they returned home. They are both true profiles in courage.”
Bill White and Doris Voitier were chosen as the recipients of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s prestigious award for political courage by a distinguished bipartisan committee of national, political, and community leaders. Al Hunt, Washington managing editor of Bloomberg News, chairs the 13-member Profile in Courage Award Committee. Committee members are Michael Beschloss, author and presidential historian; David Burke, former president of CBS News; U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi); Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund; Antonia Hernandez, president and chief executive officer of the California Community Foundation; Elaine Jones, former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; Caroline Kennedy, president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts); Paul G. Kirk, Jr., chairman of the board of directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University; U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine); and Patricia M. Wald, former judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. John Shattuck, chief executive officer of the Kennedy Library Foundation, staffs the Committee. Mr. Shattuck is a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic.
The John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award is presented annually to public servants who have made courageous decisions of conscience without regard for the personal or professional consequences. The award is named for President Kennedy’s 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, which recounts the stories of American statesmen, the obstacles they faced, and the special valor they demonstrated despite the risks. This year’s award marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize. The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation created the Profile in Courage Award™ in 1989 to honor President Kennedy’s commitment and contribution to public service. It is presented in May in celebration of President Kennedy’s May 29th birthday.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is a presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and supported, in part, by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization. The Kennedy Presidential Library and the Kennedy Library Foundation seek to promote, through educational and community programs, a greater appreciation and understanding of American politics, history, and culture, the process of governing and the importance of public service.