BATON ROUGE, La. ― Veteran Democratic political strategist and commentator Donna Brazile makes no secret of her pride in being a Louisiana native and LSU graduate.
Now a piece of her personal history has returned to her home state with the recent donation of her papers to the LSU Libraries Special Collections.
Photographs, correspondence and speeches, as well as other writings, memoranda, reports and analyses, campaign management and research files and memorabilia comprise the collection.
Together, the 32 boxes of materials document Brazile’s involvement in Democratic politics and the Democratic National Committee and her interest in and efforts to mobilize African-American voters, elect women to office and advocate for voting rights; her public speaking and teaching; her work with the Louisiana Recovery Authority; and her participation in every presidential campaign between 1976 and 2000, including as manager of the Gore-Lieberman bid for the White House.
She was the first African-American to lead a major presidential campaign.
“LSU was an indispensable part of my education, as a person and as a political operative,” Brazile said. “From taking classes with life-changing professors to writing opinion pieces in the Daily Reveille to weekly Friday discussions on campus about the social justice issues of the day, LSU engrained in me a lifelong love of learning and shaped me as a political organizer. Because LSU gave me so much, I am humbled to give LSU Libraries Special Collections my papers and grateful to share my life’s work to encourage and inspire the next generation of political activists to take their seats at the table,” Brazile said.
Brazile graduated from LSU in 1981, and she received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 2005.
