In Brief:
- Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune has gained a reputation for being collaborative as she leads a body whose members have at times clashed dramatically.
- Affordable-housing advocates call Louijeune an effective ally with a deep understanding of the issues.
- In a city that is home to one of the nation’s largest Haitian communities, Louijeune is the first Haitian American on the City Council. She's advocating for immigrant rights at a time when the White House is increasingly hostile to immigrants in general and Haitians in particular.
President Donald Trump’s travel bans aren’t an abstract concept for Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune. She helps lead a city with the third-largest Haitian American population in the country.
“I've heard from people who are unsure if they should travel to visit loved ones because of this travel ban,” she said earlier this month. “And that's exactly what this administration wants to do; they want to sow fear and uncertainty and chaos.”
Louijeune is the first Haitian American to serve on Boston’s City Council. Her parents were migrants from the island nation — they arrived with “nothing but a whiff of the American dream,” according to her campaign website — and raised her in the city’s Hyde Park and Mattapan neighborhoods. She’s often recounted how her parents left their doors unlocked so that anyone could come in if they needed food, a place to stay or help completing paperwork.
Although they arrived poor in the U.S., her parents worked “around the clock,” she's said, while her father still made time to head her school’s parent-teacher council. “The reason I’m in public service is because [of] what was exemplified for me growing up in Mattapan and Hyde Park having parents who are incredibly giving, incredibly communal, incredibly faithful,” Louijeune told WGBH last year. She declined to be interviewed for this story.
After winning her second term with the most votes of any at-large candidate in the city two years ago, she was elevated by her peers to serve as council president. She’s running for a third term this fall.
Housing is an issue all over the country but Louijeune brings to bear her perspective from having worked as an attorney in housing court. She’s come at the topic from many angles, including affordability requirements on developers, land trusts, housing vouchers for the homeless and helping former incarcerated people find transitional housing.
Even as she pushes her colleagues and Mayor Michelle Wu on such issues, she’s built a reputation for taking a collaborative approach on a council that is at times highly divided.
During her first term, she was assigned to lead a contentious redistricting process that had seen four city councilors sue the others. “I think she does a fair job at trying to resolve any conflict or find mediation between issues,” says Councilor Henry Santana, who recently collaborated with Louijeune on a ranked-choice voting policy proposal.
Carving Her Own Path
Louijeune has pushed for more funding for organizations helping newly arrived immigrants. Earlier this year, she introduced a resolution denouncing the end of temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants. “To cancel TPS is a slap in the face of so many of our residents,” Louijeune said. “Racial animus is behind what we are seeing here.”
Even as a teenager, Louijeune was engaged in her community. She helped film community events for “Tele Galaxie,” a television program co-created by her father that airs on public television for Haitian audiences in several cities. “You don’t see too often an adolescent who’d definitely take a Sunday, instead of doing her own thing, dedicating that time to be at a church filming,” says Dieufort J. Fleurissaint, co-creator of “Tele Galaxie” and a notable figure in Boston’s Haitian American community. “She was really committed and passionate about doing this.”
In high school, Louijeune worked as an intern for Marie St. Fleur, then a state representative and the first Haitian American to hold public office in Massachusetts. “She was smart, she paid attention to detail, she asked questions and she was pleasant to be around,” St. Fleur recalls. “She was a young woman who was determined. Even back then you knew that she was very focused.”
Louijeune went on to garner an impressive educational resume, studying at Columbia University, Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Her legal career includes serving as senior attorney on Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Leading Through Collaboration
Her political rise has come at a time when Trump has repeatedly targeted immigrants in general and Haitians in particular. The administration has halted or prevented expansion of two programs providing Haitian immigrants with temporary legal status on humanitarian grounds and, in early June, banned travel from Haiti.
She remains connected with local Haitian community leaders, frequently participates in community events and is available at church to meet one-on-one with residents and learn about issues they face, Fleurissaint says.
“She believes in the promise of our country, which is the idealism which kept America going for all these years,” St. Fleur says, “She is a bright star with a bright future.”
She and her staff are always accessible, says Santana, her fellow at-large councilor.
“She’s very professional,” Santana says. “She tries to be as fair as one can be.”
