Updated: Alexandria City Official Resigns after Racist POS post

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Von Jennings, the Alexandria Community Services Director, smeared a local resident as a racist, though there is no evidence whatsoever that supports the claim.

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Late last night, Von Jennings, the City of Alexandria’s newly-minted Director of Community Services, lashed out against a white woman who posted a negative review on Facebook of the Alexandria Red River Festival, smearing her as a “racist piece of shite.” The festival, which was held for the first time this weekend, had already generated significant regional controversy, and Jennings’ comment is likely only to intensify criticism.

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Within two hours, a screen capture of Jennings’ comment had been shared more than two dozen times, with several calling for Jennings’ termination and others declaring their intention to pull support from future events.

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The woman, Morgan Aucoin, is an Alexandria resident who currently works for Embers, a locally-owned restaurant located in the heart of the city’s downtown. Her criticism contained no mention of race whatsoever, though it included a meme that mocked Jennings, an African American woman, for falsely claiming that previous festivals only included “one genre” of music.

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“Someone hasn’t been to the Indie Village,” read the caption underneath a photograph of Jennings being interviewed by KALB’s Mark Hamblin. The Indie Village was a component of the award-winning Alex River Fête, the annual festival that Jennings and newly-elected Alexandria Mayor Jeff Hall decided to rebrand and relaunch as the clumsily-named “Alexandria Red River Festival.”

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In 2010, Jennings ran unsuccessfully for Alexandria mayor. Her campaign was supported by Greg Aymond, a local attorney and former member of the Ku Klux Klan who published one of the region’s most well-known political blogs. Aymond, who died in 2012, espoused unrepentant racist beliefs on his blog and, among other things, represented the leader of a white nationalist organization in the aftermath of the Jena Six protests.

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In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that from January 2007 to August 2011, I served as the Special Assistant to former Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy. Prior to that, I served on Roy’s transition team, and in that capacity, I personally lobbied for the new mayor to hire Von Jennings, who had been highly recommended by my late grandmother for her work with the Rapides Parish Police Jury. She served as Alexandria’s Director of Workforce Development until January 2009, when she was terminated, at the recommendation of the Personnel and Interview Committee, for “insubordination,” “failure to perform duties of her job description in a thorough and professional manner,” and “excessive absences,” according to public records.

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