In August, 1967, Mayor Victor H. Schiro named an Interim Advisory Committee to recommend procedures for the creation and operation of a permanent Human Relations Committee for the City of New Orleans. After several meetings, this committee drafted an ordinance which was passed by the City Council on September 7, 1967 (#3630 MCS). By the provisions of the ordinance the Committee was to be composed of 28 members, appointed by the Mayor with Council approval to one-year terms. Officers included a Chairman, also appointed by the Mayor, and three others, to be elected by the membership. Five additional members were to be elected to serve with the officers on a nine-man Executive Board. The Committee was authorized to request staff assistance from the Mayor and later ordinances provided for an Executive Director and a Deputy Director to be appointed by the Mayor.

The Interim Committee oversaw the implementation of the ordinary and in so doing adopted a policy of dividing the membership equally between black and white persons. It further recommended that sixteen of the members be nominated by designated community groups and that the remainder be elected from six geographic districts. In 1974, ordinance #5413 MCS increased the membership to 30 in order to provide for representation from the Spanish American population.

The enabling ordinance empowered the Committee to advise the Mayor and City Council in the areas of economic opportunity, racial harmony, discrimination, and human relations in general. Toward these ends the Committee was authorized to investigate charges of discrimination, to hold hearings, to conduct studies nd publish their results, and to accept contribuntions for the furtherance of its objectives.

The Human Relations Committee began operating in April, 1968, and from its beginning it and its staff assumed an activist role in addition to the advisory one mandated by the ordinance. In its first annual report the Committee stated its basic goal as:

to make New Orleans an open community which fosters and celebrates individual, ethnic, religious, and racial diversity in the public and private sectors under the essential unity of just and humane social, political, and economic structures. In pursuit of this goal the Committee embarked on numerous projects in the field of human relations. It assisted in the creation of a Consumer Affairs Office and aided in the development of a public accomodations policy for the city. The Committee established the Answer Desk, an information and referral service for all citizens; worked closely with the Mardi Gras coalition in protecting Carnival-season visitors to the city; and coordinated the citizen participation aspect of the Community Development program. Throughout their existence the Committee and its staff investigated charges of police brutality, monitored affirmative action programs, and sought to identify community problems. During the ten years following the Committee's creation great strides were made by the Black community of New Orleans. Black city employees increased in number, minority participation in the city's economy was assured, and a Black Mayor, Ernest N. Morial, was elected. Much of the Human Relation Committee's goal had been realized by 1978 and, with the increasing severity of budget restraints, the body was no longer viewed as essential. Thus, when the terms of office for Committee members expired in Spring, 1978, no new appointments were made and the Human Relations Committee ceased to function. As the enabling ordinance was not repealed it is possible that the Committee could be reactivated in the future. The staff continued in operation on a limited basis through December, 1979, but closed its doors when its funding was not renewed in the 1980 budget. Several of the Committee's activities were transfered to the new Community Services Office under the Division of Human Resources within the Mayor's Office.