The Man Who Saw Me When the World Didn’t

Tribute • New Orleans

Dr. Norman Francis built Xavier University into a national institution, helped rebuild Louisiana after Katrina, and walked alongside the giants of the civil rights movement. But the thing I will never forget is what he did for me personally.

Like many of you, I have been watching the tributes pour in for Dr. Norman C. Francis. And every single one of them is deserved.

For nearly fifty years, he led Xavier University of Louisiana and built it into one of the most respected historically Black universities in America — producing generation after generation of Black doctors, pharmacists, and professionals who went on to serve their communities across this country. He believed, deeply and without apology, that education was the great equalizer. Not as a slogan. As a life’s purpose.

A Leader in Every Room That Mattered

After Hurricane Katrina, when this city was broken and scattered and raw with grief, Dr. Francis stepped forward to chair the Louisiana Recovery Authority. That was not a ceremonial role. It meant guiding billions of dollars in federal recovery funds and making sure that the communities who lost the most had a genuine seat at the table. He was calm when everything around him was chaos. That steadiness mattered more than most people will ever know.

He was also a civil rights insider in ways that few people fully appreciated. A trusted friend of Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte. A man who understood that the most powerful work often happens quietly, in the rooms that history never records. He never chased attention. He just kept showing up and doing the work.

That is the Dr. Francis the world is celebrating right now. And they should be.

But I want to tell you about something else. Something more personal than any title or any achievement.

“Sometimes the moments that do not go as planned are the moments when you learn the most about yourself.”

Related: Dr. Francis Turned Xavier Into a Medical Powerhouse

What He Did for Me

There was a season in my life when things had gone publicly wrong. The kind of wrong that becomes the story people tell about you, and not in flattering terms. A lot of people who had been around during the good times became suddenly unavailable. That is just the nature of public life, and I understood it. But it still leaves a mark.

That is when Dr. Francis called me to his office at Xavier.

I want you to understand what that meant. This was not a courtesy visit. This was Dr. Norman Francis — one of the most respected men in Louisiana, a man with every credential and every reason to keep his distance from someone the world had decided was down — choosing to show up anyway.

He did not want to lecture me. He did not try to remind me of my mistakes. Instead, he reminded me of who I was and what I was still capable of doing. He told me to keep serving the community. He told me to use the experience — even the painful, humbling parts of it — as a way of reaching other people who would one day find themselves in a similar place and need to know that you can still get up.

Then he said something I have never forgotten:

“Sometimes the moments that do not go as planned are the moments when you learn the most about yourself and about the world.”

I took that with me. I still carry it today.

The Real Measure of the Man

Dr. Francis used to tell Black audiences: “Hold your ground.” He said it because he had lived it — across fifty years, in every arena of public life, under pressures most of us will never face. He was gentle in manner and iron in conviction. He proved, one graduating class at a time, that education could change a family’s destiny.

But the deepest measure of the man, for me, is simpler than any of that. Dr. Norman Francis recognized people when they were succeeding. And he showed up with even greater intention when the world believed they had failed.

That is the mark of a real leader. That is the mark of a real mentor.