Wearing a blue suit and thick-rimmed glasses, Oliver Thomas paced the St. Augustine High School gym, making eye contact with students in the crowd as he mused about how city leaders can uplift Black businesses.

The students listened intently as he promised to do so as New Orleans’ next mayor .

Then Thomas hit his stride. Shuffling his feet, bending his knees and spreading his arms in dance, he pledged, too, to defend New Orleans from incursions by state and federal leaders.

"I want to be a mayor that if Jeff Landry and Donald Trump don’t understand what we’re about, I’ll be the one to get in their face and tell them, ‘Don’t make me trip out,’” Thomas said, doing a snippet of a dance popularized by New Orleans artist T99ZY.

The gym full of Purple Knights cheered.

Thomas, a veteran

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