Superdome Services, Inc.: Tracing the Convergence Between Black Enterprise and Neoliberalism in a Post-Civil Rights Era New Orleans, 1974-1977
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2022
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of History
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en
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Abstract
Utilizing records drawn from New Orleans’ Times Picayune and Louisiana Weekly
newspapers, this research paper will attempt to explore early manifestations of neoliberalism
during the 1970s Superdome controversy. In 1974 a predominantly-Black firm, Superdome
Services, Inc. (SSI) was awarded a multi-million-dollar contract to manage the new Superdome,
making them the largest Black-owned public contractor in the country. Within 3 years, political
and media campaigns emphasizing on the company and its leaders’ alleged incompetence, theft,
and criminality led to the cancellation of their contract and privatization of Superdome
management. This paper will attempt to relate the press coverage of this era to early
developments in neoliberalism its relation to racial politics, demonstrating how neoliberal
rhetoric and ideology successfully infiltrated public figures across the political divide.