Lessons of Katrina: America's Racial and Ethnic Groups Find Common Ground After the Storm
Speech by Wade Henderson - November 17, 2005
Good morning. I'm Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the nation's oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition, and counselor to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, the research, communications, and education arm of the civil rights coalition. I invite you to learn more about each of these organizations by visiting www.civilrights.org.
I'm also the Joseph Rauh Professor of Public Interest Law at the University of the District of Columbia, which has special relevance to my interest in today's discussion.
The LCCR consists of nearly 200 national organizations, working together to resolve the ongoing civil and human rights problems of our time. The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina - and the social fissures it exposed -- is one of our nation's most pressing problems. The hurricane not only affected many of the constituencies of the Leadership Conference -- African Americans, Latino and Asian communities, Native Americans, poor whites, the elderly, people with disabilities, and many others, it opened a window on the continuing problems of race, class, poverty and inequality like nothing we've seen in many years. The question is whether Hurricane Katrina has also provided an opportunity to address these issues in a positive way.
The Leadership Conference is committed to monitoring the relief and rebuilding efforts as they unfold and to advocate for policies that will address the needs of individuals and communities devastated by Katrina. The Leadership Conference has brought the civil rights community together to focus on the fundamental civil and human rights that should be accorded all internally displaced persons. Just a few weeks ago, for example, we sponsored the first of a series of forums designed to help amplify the voices of people directly affected by the Gulf Coast hurricanes; and we have made a long-term commitment to continue our focus on important or neglected areas of relevant public policy.
Data, of course, is key to a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities ahead, which brings us to today's discussion. While there have been many polls conducted since Katrina, the poll presented today is different from the others, and as a result, its findings are of enormous significance to the Leadership Conference coalition. Instead of a check up on our politicians, this poll tested the consequences of Katrina on Americans view of ourselves. For nearly twenty-five years, poverty has not been largely absent from the political agenda of either politicians or pollsters; and even if on the radar screen, certainly not a priority. This poll seems to indicate that Katrina was a shock to the American psyche and made a real imprint on Americans about what it means to be poor; that life is more difficult for poor people in the United States than many people ever imagined; and that people believe it is a "disgrace" that millions of Americans live in poverty.
Americans seem genuinely to want something done about poverty in this nation. Dramatic images of tens of thousands of poor families abandoned at the Superdome and in the Convention Center in New Orleans, and of thousands of families stranded on Interstate-10 without food or water, may have had a major impact on the way many Americans look at poverty and what the nation should do about it. It remains to be seen whether this view will be fleeting and episodic -- or whether it represents a a real watershed of public opinion.
Before we get started, I wanted to mention that this is the Leadership Conference's second collaboration with New America Media; Bendixon & Associates; and the Center for American Progress -- the first being an unprecedented collaboration on the importance and reach of ethnic media.
Thanks are due to Sandy Close of New America Media for commissioning this poll; to Sergio Bendixon and Bendixon & Associates for their terrific work; and to the Center for American Progress, our co-sponsor in this collaboration And it's wonderful to be here at the Human Rights Campaign; thanks to HRC President Joe Solmonese and Courtney McCall for hosting this event.
It's now my pleasure to introduce Erlin Ibrecht of the Open Society Institute, who has contributed generous support to this project...
