A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New Orleans' Twelfth Ward in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1960 to 1966, served on the New Orleans City Council as a member at-large from 1966 to 1970, and was the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under U.S. president Jimmy Carter from 1979 to 1981.

[4] Joseph was born in 1892 in Mississippi, the son of Frenchman Victor Firmin Landrieu and Cerentha Mackey, the out-of-wedlock child of a black woman and an unknown father.

[7] In the late 1950s, Landrieu became involved in the youth wing of the mayor deLesseps Morrison's Crescent City Democratic Organization.

[7][11] In 1969, he led a successful push for a city ordinance outlawing segregation based on race or religion in public accommodations, an issue that had been addressed nationally in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[16] On May 3, 1970, the day before he took his oath of office as mayor, Landrieu received a death threat by telephone, but authorities quickly caught the culprit.

[17] During his tenure as mayor, Landrieu oversaw desegregation of city government and public facilities and encouraged integration within business and professional organizations.

[3] Before Landrieu was elected, there were no high-ranking black employees or officials in City Hall; he worked actively to change this by appointing African Americans to top positions, including Terrence R. Duvernay as chief administrative officer, the number two position in the executive branch of city government.

[21] He advocated the creation of the Downtown Development District to revitalize the New Orleans CBD, and worked to promote the city's tourism industry.

[23] Most of that study's recommendations were enacted by Landrieu, including the 1976 establishment of the Historic District Landmarks Commission ("HDLC"), which extended design review and demolition controls for the first time to parts of New Orleans outside the French Quarter.

[26] After leaving office in 1978, Landrieu served as the secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

[3] President Jimmy Carter appointed Landrieu to this post during a major reshuffle in which he reassigned Patricia Harris to replace Joseph A. Califano Jr. at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.