LCCREF Forum Participants Testify About Hurricane Katrina and Rebuilding Efforts in the Gulf Coast
Feature Story by Tyler Lewis - 11/4/2005
Witnesses at an October 28 forum on the condition of people and communities affected by Hurricane Katrina said strong public policies are needed to address poverty and racial isolation in the Gulf Coast.Numerous civil rights groups and media reports have called attention to the racial and class disparities that exacerbated the effects of the storm.
The forum was convened by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) and is the first in a planned series of forums on Katrina and its aftermath.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), LCCREF's sister organization, has also created a task force to examine the policy implication of Katrina. "Katrina has provided not only a window through which we see the face of poverty and racial isolation in this country, but also an opportunity to address those issues in a positive way," said Wade Henderson, executive director of LCCR and counselor to LCCREF, in remarks made at the forum.
Hurricane survivors and local experts providing relief and working on policies to address the devastation gave personal testimony and responded to questions posed by a panel led by Dr. Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Berry and other panelists, including Vincent A. Eng, deputy director of the Asian American Justice Center (formerly National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium), Francis S. Guess, executive vice president of The Danner Company, an investment firm, and former member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and Tennessee Human Rights Commission, and Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for the National Council of La Raza's Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation, questioned witnesses on what government agencies could have done differently to help evacuees and victims of the hurricane.
The witnesses' accounts highlighted their experiences with relief efforts. Ruby Campbell of Biloxi, Mississippi told the audience that it took nearly two weeks to receive aid. She cited the disorganized relief efforts of FEMA and the Red Cross as reasons for the delay.
Nilo Cervantes, a legal U.S. citizen, was thrown out of shelters and forced to live in a tent on the grounds of a church after being told that the shelters were for citizens only. The church, Pass Road Baptist Church in Gulfport, Mississippi, continues to provide Cervantes and other evacuees with what little aid it can.
The local experts talked extensively of the challenges that evacuees face finding jobs and permanent housing. The forum came just days after President Bush reinstated the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires contractors to pay the prevailing wage of an area to employees on government contracts.
FEMA has created temporary trailer cities for evacuees, but have given little or no indications of when permanent housing will be provided. Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, pastor at Northminster Baptist Church in Monroe, Louisiana said residents of Louisiana call these cities "FEMA ghettos". He said "outrageous assumptions" about New Orleans residents have adversely affected their ability to find gainful employment.
There is a need for "very different applied ethics" for rebuilding jobs and infrastructure that would encourage the poor and minority evacuees to return to New Orleans, according to Barbara Major, co-chair of the Bring Back New Orleans Commission. The commission was created by New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin to advise the city on the best ways to rebuild the city.
"I believe strongly in the right of return for all the victims of the hurricanes who have been scattered across the country," said Major. "But the assumption should not be that all people want to come back to what they left behind. There was a great deal of despair and isolation before Hurricane Katrina even hit."
The witnesses who spoke at the forum continue to be invested in their neighborhoods and communities. New Orleans residents Sara and Tim Thu-Nguyet Nguyen plan to rebuild their store there, despite suffering significant damage. Campbell, a long time resident of Biloxi, also plans on staying in the city.
