Alice T: "I was left there for a reason, to help out."

by Ben Greenberg

On January 27, I talked to Alice T about her experiences during Hurricane Katrina. We were in her FEMA trailer, adjacent to her East Biloxi home on Anglada St. Alice T is 54 years old and will turn 55 in February. She is disabled and unable to work.

That mornin' we got up and ate breakfast and everythin'. I think about 8:00, 9:00, somethin' like that, I was sittin' in the livin' room watchin' the television and we were watchin' the news and the children and Jennifer and the other sister they was in the dinin' room and talkin', lookin' out the window. I was still sittin' the den—me and the children. They was lookin' out the window and they was seein' people goin' and after a while I heard them say about the water, was risin' up.

I was still sittin' there just as calm, watchin' television, and I was hearin' em say the water's risin' up. And then I heard them say the car is movin'. I still never had got up to hear nothin' or see what was goin' on. And after a while when they said, your car is floatin' down the street. And my neighbors, they was wadin' in the water tryin' to get somewhere.

After a while there was a big boom. The pressure had busted the back door open. Then that's when we jumped up and started runnin'. The water rushed in fast. The children was screamin' cause they panicked. But we got up and started walkin' around and tryin' to see what to do.

The children was screamin' and we was calmin' them down, sayin' it was gonna be alright, everythin' was gonna be alright. After a while we heard the water was risen' up. Pastor B, she said let's go up in the attic. So we got tables and chairs, 'cause we didn't have no way to climb up. Didn't have a ladder.

Jeremy he got up there first cause he was the strongest one, the lightest one, the smallest one. He's a teenager. He's 18. He jumped up there, got in the chair, pulled the door open, and climbed up in there. And we got all the children up first. Set em up in there, told them to sit on the frame up there in the attic. Got all of the children up there first. And then I said, put me up there so I can help with the children. So they pulled me up and then they pulled Pastor B up. About time they got Pastor B up there, the ceilin' part had collapsed. About five of em fell down. The three month old and one five year old and two year old, I think or somethin' like that, but about five of em.

And then they fell down into the water and the water was just like half way above their [the adults'] knees. Jeremy, when they fell, he jumped down and helped find the children. So they got the children up, and the baby was just as calm. She never cried or never nothin' any. That was just a miracle.

And so Pastor B was sittin' down, and then she got, she had slipped down but grabbed on to the frame there. And then I was the only one still up there, so they was passin' me the children up in there. And I tried to set up, and I told em sit on this wood, do not sit in the middle, cause it just like cushion in between, insulation. So we got em all back there and we pulled Pastor B up. And everybody sittin' around.

We got all the children up so we started pullin' up the other adults. Connie, Jennifer and them. We pulled em up and we all got em all up in the attic. By the time we got all way up there, water was about six feet. The water was still risen' up there. And we stayed up in that attic I think about six hours.

If we had panicked, I think we wouldn't have made it. We all worked as a team. I thank God for that. We sat up there in that attic six hours. That wind, that storm, it seemed like it lasted for like fourteen hours before it settled down. About 4:00 or 5:00 [Monday evening] or somethin' like that we finally got down out of the attic. The water went down slow, real slow.

The baby got sick, she got a little fever. She still, she was just calm and everythin'. She didn't cry. She just coughed, just a little bit. They took her to the hospital. They pumped her and give her a shot and everythin'. But if you see her right today, you never thought anythin' happened to her.

I was more scared for other people than myself. To me I thought I was left there for a reason, to help out. I'm glad I was there.

Technorati Tags: east biloxi, katrina, mississippi

 

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1/30/2006 10:06:00 PM 0 comments

 

Miss TT

by Ben Greenberg

 

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1/29/2006 01:58:00 AM 0 comments

 

Outside Miss TT's House

by Ben Greenberg

 

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1/29/2006 01:58:00 AM 0 comments

 

Mold

by Ben Greenberg

This is some of the mold on Miss TT's walls.

 

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1/29/2006 01:56:00 AM 0 comments

 

Inside Miss TT's House

by Ben Greenberg

You can see the water line above Miss TT's things in the corner.

 

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1/29/2006 01:55:00 AM 0 comments

 

Miss TT

by Ben Greenberg

Miss TT is 63 years old. She lives on General Pershing St, Ocean Springs, MS. Miss TT finally got a FEMA trailer last week, almost five months after her house was wrecked by Hurricane Katrina. Miss TT has many health problems and takes many medications. With nowhere else to live while she was waiting for her FEMA trailer, Miss TT has stayed inside her house though it filled with water duing the storm and is missing one of its walls. The mold which is in Miss TT's house since the flooding has been exacerbating her asthma, and she is worried she may have pneumonia. Miss TT says she often has trouble breathing when she lies down to try to sleep. Though Miss TT finally has a FEMA trailer, she continues to live inside her moldy house. The heating system in her trailer isn't working, and she finds it too cold to live in.

Miss TT had been scheduled to have surgery for a locked bowel on the day that Katrina hit. She still has not rescheduled her surgery because she doesn't feel she can have the surgery without a healthy environment to live in after she is released from the hospital.

Technorati Tags: fema, katrina, mississippi, ocean springs

 

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1/29/2006 01:41:00 AM 0 comments

 

Finally Real WiFi

by Ben Greenberg

This is the first time I've had high speed internet access since I've been in Mississippi and Louisiana. I have a few hours here at the Rue De La Course café in the Carrollton neighborhood of New Orleans. I should now be able to deal with more of my photos and fix the ones that did not upload properly. Maybe I'll get a little writing in, too. I expect to have some more time on-line later on this afternoon and/or tonight.

The photos should make some more sense, once there are more in sequence. I will be adding some explanations after I do the initial work of getting them uploaded. The flickr tags should give you some additional clues in the meantime.

Technorati Tags: blog, louisina

 

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1/25/2006 11:12:00 AM 0 comments

 

Gerry Hall: "...out here was worse than New Orleans."

by Ben Greenberg

Last night, I interviewed Mrs. Gerry Hall, 72 years old, African American native of New Orleans, who has lived in the house that she owns in the Upper Ninth Ward for forty years. The house flooded badly and was then further ruined by mold.

One of Mrs. Hall's daughters, Violetta, has been living on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi for the last six years. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, Violetta Hall was living in a coastal apartment complex in Long Beach at 101Cheri Ln.

Several years ago, Gerry Hall began to have health complications with congestive heart failure and diabetes and had to leave her job of twenty years at a check cashing place in New Orleans. After about two years of being unable to work, Mrs. Hall began coming to stay with Violetta on weekends and working as a cook at an assisted living facility in Gulfport. As a result, Mrs. Hall was in Long Beach with her daughter the last weekend of August, when Katrina arrived. Gerry Hall, Violetta Hall, and Violetta's daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, all spent about four weeks together in an unofficial shelter in the Quarles Elementary School in Long Beach.

I interviewed Mrs. Hall in her FEMA trailer in a camp of FEMA trailers at the A-1 RV Park & Campground in Pass Christian, MS.

Everything on the beach .... Violetta's house—nothin' but slab. Her car—gone. Found her car where my grand daughter's livin' room was—where there's nothin' but slab, I mean nothin'... You pass there, you never know a house was there or apartments was there....

I'll be 73 years old in June, and this is the worst. I was in Betsy, in New Orleans in '65, and I thought that was bad. And then after came Camille, went to Mississippi. But this here was the worst. And then New Orleans, we had all that flood, but at least a lot of the people's houses are standin'. But to me, out here was worse than out there ...

They say, "you from New Orleans. Ooh yeah, you're about all that in the Superdome." That's all they talk about. They never talk about the flood ... or how bad the houses are or anything like that.

But to me out here was worse than New Orleans. It was devastating. The whole Gulf Coast. The whole beach. Even now, when you pass on the beach. It's pitiful. All these big mansions. It's nothin'—nothin' but gravel, nothin' but splinters of wood. The whole beach is just torn up. Even now, we passed there a couple of days ago—nothin'. That beach is just gone.

Technorati Tags: katrina, louisina, mississippi, nola

 

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1/24/2006 06:55:00 PM 0 comments

 

Day 2: Bay St. Louis, Diamondhead, Gulfport, Longbeach, Pass Christian (Outline Version)

by Ben Greenberg

I was in the middle of writing about Day 2 last night, but it got very late, so here's the outline of what I did yesterday (1/23). Today I should have some more time to catch up on writing and, if I can get on high speed internet access, posting many more photos.

Mid morning - early afternoon
1. Bay St. Louis coastline: the entire coastline of vacation homes and other buildings wiped out completely.

2. Diamondhead Yacht Club: surrounding the yacht club were three story homes built along canals that come off the St. Louis Bay. All that was left of the houses were portions of their wood frames.

Late afternoon - 10:00 pm
1. Gulfport: brief tour with Gayle Tart, Carland Baker, Sam Edward Arnold, and Billy Morgan of the African American neighborhoods: Turnkey, Turkey Creek, Central Gulfport. Saw historic African American St. Paul AME Church, est. 1907, now severely damaged, in Central Guflport, on the corner of 21st St and 32nd Ave.

2. Long Beach: Beach front destroyed, like Bay St. Louis . Went to the location of Carland Baker's former home.

3. Pass Christian:

• Drove along the decimated coast line.
• Met white Christian volunteers from Washington State and Ohio who were in MS through a program set up by the Delta Ministries. They were all working to clean up and restore the plant nursery of Nancy Adams, 80 years old, white.
• Next door, as you head up Davis Ave, away from Rt. 90, is the Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church, a Black church which took water nearly up to its ceiling rafters. Met the Pastor, Harry Toussaint, the Deacon, Robert Stewart, and other congregation members who were working on restoration of the Church.
• Went further north on Davis Road and documented some more of the devastation. Saw what was left of Labats Restaurant, an historic African American establishment.
• Went to the home of Gayle Tart's late brother, who died with his two year old son inside their home, after the house filled with water during Katrina.
• Visited FEMA trailer park, housed in the A-1 RV Park. Two interviews with African American storm survivors: 1) Violetta Hall with Carland Baker, Sam Edward Arnold, and Billy Morgan 2) Mama Gerry Hall, mother of Violetta. Violetta Hall told of her family's experiences surviving the storm. She and the other three men talked about some of the current issues around living in FEMA trailers, federal assistance, and employment. Violetta's mother is from the Upper 9th Ward of New Orleans and was in Mississippi with her daughter the weekend when Katrina hit. The elder Mrs. Hall used to have a weekend job at the assisted living facility where Violetta worked full time, in Long Beach. Mrs. Hall spoke about the damage to her home in New Orleans and her strong desire to return there. Mrs. Hall also emphasized that many of her friends and neighbors, like her, are actively rebuilding and trying to return home.

Technorati Tags: class, fema, katrina, louisina, mississippi, nola, race, racism

 

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1/24/2006 10:59:00 AM 0 comments

 

Day 1: Arriving In Gulfport/Intro to the Gulf Coast

by Ben Greenberg

Yesterday (1/22), I got into Gulfport later than planned: my connecting flight from Atlanta to Gulfport was delayed, and I had to change my car rental because of some problems I had with my original reservation. I was fortunate that Gayle Tart met me at the airport, because I don't know if I would have succeeded in changing the car rental without her help.

Gayle met me at the airport, along with Carland Baker, a retired veteran. Both Gayle and Carland are African American residents of the area. Gayle was raised in Gulfport and lives there now. Carland was living in a beach front housing complex in Longbeach. His townhouse was completely destroyed. He lost everything he had and is now living in a FEMA trailer on the local army base. Gayle is the person who urged me to make this trip.

I followed Gayle and Carland out of the airport to where they could drop Carland's car off, in the Wal Mart parking lot on Rt. 49, the road that runs north-south, through Gulfport, starting at Rt. 90, which runs east-west, along the length of the Gulf Coast.

Gayle and Carland got into my rental car, and we drove down to Rt. 90 and then headed east, along the coast, through Gulfport and into Biloxi. It was already getting dark when we started. This dimly lit introductory tour was just an initial taste of the coastline which is decimated across the entire length of Mississippi and into Mobile, Alabama.

While in Gulfport, we went slightly north for a stretch of 2nd Street, an exclusive, wealthy area, now mostly a mixture of rubble, houses with walls and roofs pushed in, and mashed cars. Further east on 90, as we got into Biloxi, entire casinos on barges had been carried by the surge of water out of ocean and onto dry land on the north side of the highway.

More details later, perhaps. I need to tell some of the details of what I saw today.

Technorati Tags: katrina, mississippi

 

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1/23/2006 11:28:00 AM 1 comments

 

Before Katrina: Fighting To Preserve Turkey Creek

by Ben Greenberg

While the fight for self determination for all residents of New Orleans—their right to return and to rebuild their communities—has not been the focus of mainstream news coverage, it is an issue that many readers have probably read something about. As in New Orleans, the interest of white developers in predominantly African American neighborhoods is not a phenomenon produced by Hurricane Katrina.

Before Katrina, one of the more recent community battles ended in something of a victory for the residents of Turkiey Creek. This was the story from 2000-2003:

The struggle over Turkey Creek began in 2000, when developer T. J. "Butch" Ward, a Republican politician from Louisiana, used his enviable connections to get three U.S. senators—Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and John Breaux (D-La.)—to pressure regulatory officials from the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to approve a permit for him. Ward wanted to fill 500 acres of wetlands in the Turkey Creek drainage in order to build a mixed-use commercial development, including an office complex and distribution center.

"When I was a girl, all we knew was this neighborhood," [says Rose] Johnson [of the North Gulfport Community Land Trust]. "The beaches were ‘whites only.’ So Turkey Creek is where we went to fish, pick blackberries, recreate. Oftentimes you could see old people walking down to Turkey Creek with their cane poles in their hands. Churches had no pools inside for baptisms then—we all walked down to the creek and waited until the crowd got there."

Johnson’s father, who had a fourth-grade education, worked all his life at a creosote plant operating on the banks of the creek. He took the little bit of money he made to feed his family and buy a piece of land. "By the time he retired," Johnson says, "his lungs were completely eroded, eaten up. He just made 70."

When development started to sprawl northward from the casinos along the coastline, turning North Gulfport from rural to urban, Johnson noticed that the creek’s water turned colors and got dirty. People dumped old tires and garbage in it. Though the creosote plant shut down 20-some years ago, its toxic soil was being treated on-site, and, according to Johnson, you can still smell and see creosote in the water. Fecal coliform levels were high from leaking septic tanks and from sewage piped directly into the creek.

On the afternoon I first phoned Johnson to set up a meeting, the conversation had been interrupted by her grown daughter, who ran breathlessly into Johnson’s home. "There’s a man fishing in Turkey Creek," she said. Johnson had begged pardon, saying, "I’ve got to tell this man that Turkey Creek is so polluted he can’t eat the fish," before she hung up.

Johnson heard about the proposed Ward development from state senator Deborah Dawkins, a former Mississippi Sierra Club Chapter chair considered the most pro-environment legislator in the state. Dawkins had become aware of Johnson’s work and introduced her to the Sierra Club.

By this time, only a week remained in the comment period for the proposal. "We are left out of the process," Johnson says. "Developments get built before we even know about it. But it’s our ditches and streets that flood." Johnson immediately hit the pavement. In 48 hours she collected 526 signatures on a Sierra Club petition opposing the development, as well as 60 letters—"a relatively high number" of comments, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

Residents of North Gulfport depend on wetlands to mitigate flooding. Even without the Ward development, following torrential rains Turkey Creek swells over its wooded banks, rushing into churches and homes, causing septic tanks to overflow. A watermark can be seen two feet up the side of Forrest Heights Baptist Church, a few hundred feet from the creek. Development aggravates the problems, since buildings and impervious surfaces like concrete impede water from percolating into the soil.

"I had to explain what wetlands are," says Johnson. "We call them swamps. But wetlands are natural sponges, and we need them to absorb water, to filter pollutants."

The Sierra Club brought in an engineering firm to analyze Ward’s proposal. "Their study supported our fears," says Johnson. The report confirmed that flooding in the area would increase, and that the developer’s analysis was inaccurate and inappropriate for a project of this scale. The study verified the likelihood that inadequately treated storm water would cause an increase in creek pollution.

Public outcry prompted Ward to redraw his plans a few times, but never without the loss of wetlands, which was unacceptable to the community. The white mayor of Gulfport, Ken Combs, was overtly critical of North Gulfport’s resistance to the development. In a meeting in April 2003 with the city’s daily newspaper, referring to the project opposition, he said, "We’re dealing with some dumb bastards." He added, "I’m not running for reelection so I guess I can say that. None of these people voted for me anyway." The councilor representing the area called for his resignation, as did the NAACP.

In May, as the controversy grew more heated, the Sierra Club helped distribute yard signs throughout North Gulfport that read, "We can clean up Mississippi’s air and water." Within a few days, the mayor sent out code-enforcement officials who removed the signs, purportedly because the placards blocked highway vision. Local activists charged that the city was selectively enforcing its codes, and eventually the signs were returned.

Finally, on December 16, 2003, after three years of well-organized opposition, Butch Ward withdrew his permit application for the development. "I thought it was the best Christmas present that ever was," says Johnson.

With this victory, there were still other serious challenges to tackle, before Katrina ever arrived in Gulfport.

Johnson had witnessed numerous outside speculators taking advantage of the annual tax sale to purchase property in the neighborhood. Many elderly residents had lost their homes in the face of escalating property taxes. “Everywhere you looked another for sale sign was going up in North Gulfport,” Johnson says. Her idea was to save property that was left behind by her parents’ generation and return it to the hands of African-American families. From this vision of restoring the community, Johnson and Gillette went on to create the first Mississippi coastal community land trust to promote land preservation and affordable housing in North Gulfport.

The land trust is dedicated to protecting the culture and character of the neighborhood in the face of encroaching commercial development and recent foreclosures. It builds on a culture of homeownership in Mississippi. Over 72 percent of housing in Mississippi is owner-occupied. Yet, only 60 percent of African Americans own their own homes, compared to 78 percent of whites. Between 1990 and 2000, the state experienced a 25 percent growth in vacant, abandoned or otherwise unsuitable housing, twice the national rate of increase. Low per capita income and land speculation contribute to the decline in available land and housing among Mississippi’s most distressed minority communities.

The residents of North Gulfport face even higher rates of poverty, land loss and housing abandonment than the state average. Their houses are much older and worth significantly less on the market. Residents also tend to occupy their homes for longer periods of time, and houses are often inherited rather than bought. Their lower home values are associated with limited access to schools, hospitals and other public facilities. North Gulfport stands in the precarious position of wanting to preserve its cultural and architectural heritage from polluters and unscrupulous developers, and also fighting desperately for public improvements.

This is some of the background against which to evaluate current discussions of rebuilding and redevelopment in Gulfport.

Technorati Tags: activism, class, mississippi, poverty, race, racism

 

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1/19/2006 10:05:00 AM 0 comments

 

Turkey Creek: Historic African American Community In North Gulfport

by Ben Greenberg

North Gulfport is home to the historic African American community of Turkey Creek.

In 1866, a small group of recently emancipated African-Americans exercised their newly acquired rights of citizenship, property-ownership and self-determination to purchase and settle the 320 acres or “eight forties” that came to be known as the Turkey Creek community.... Named for both a brackish stream flowing northeast towards Bayou Bernard and an abundance of wild turkeys in the area, the Turkey Creek community found itself nestled in one of North America’s most diversified natural habitats.

It is no coincidence that the 1866 settlement of Turkey Creek by African-American “Freedmen” took place at the beginning of the Reconstruction era, which occurred from 1865 to 1877. During this critically important period of American history, the Thirteenth Amendment (1865) permanently outlawed slavery in the United States; the Fourteenth Amendment (1866) granted ex-slaves US citizenship and “equal protection under the law”; the Fifteenth Amendment (1868) gave black men the right to vote; and, for the first time ever, millions of blacks and whites across Mississippi and the South opened savings accounts, purchased land, and attended free public schools, etc. Prior to Reconstruction, a community quite like Turkey Creek had not been possible on Mississippi or American soil....

It is also important to note that the pioneers who settled the poorly drained “eight forties” were every bit as visionary, industrious and innovative as the men who, decades later, would establish the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad, the Port of Gulfport, and the city of Gulfport to the south. With far less financial, political or social capital than the celebrated founders of Gulfport, Turkey Creek’s early settlers ... created arable land to practice sustainable agriculture and developed a viable, self-sufficient American community bound together by local customs and institutions. Clearing footpaths and wagon trails to follow the upland’s winding crest, they built their own homes, farms, businesses, church and school....

It is notable that some southern black communities thrived in surprising and remarkable ways during the era of Jim Crow. The Turkey Creek community stands out in this regard due to several factors, including: its relative isolation and autonomy; the land wealth of its residents; its ample supply of both creek and deep-well water for drinking, cooking and cleaning; its abundance of edible plant, fish and wildlife; its relatively steady job opportunities on Creosote Road; the entrepreneurial spirit of many residents; and the community’s exceptionally close-knit bonds of kinship, faith and neighborly cooperation. Even the thickly forested wetlands to the south, east and west served historically to protect the settlement from hurricanes and other undesired intrusions....

The Turkey Creek community’s highly valued independence and cultural continuity remained essentially undisturbed until the mid 1980s. At roughly the same time that federal authorities shut down the creosote plant (1986), an ordinance was passed locally requiring Turkey Creek residents to cap their prized water wells and tie into Harrison County water. These two important events were the first major rumblings of a new day to come. Since then, a barrage including airport expansion, annexation by Gulfport, land speculation, deforestation, wetland destruction, commercial sprawl, spot zoning and political isolation have all severely endangered this priceless gem of Mississippi and American heritage. Notably, unsightly sprawl on Highway 49 and Creosote Road has continued to spread to within feet of Turkey Creek homes and yards. Even the community’s historic cemetery ... was largely destroyed by redevelopment in 2001. In that year, the Mississippi Heritage Trust listed the entire community as one of the state’s Ten Most Endangered Historical Places.

(Excerpted from Turkey Creek Community Initiatives.)

Technorati Tags: mississippi, race, racism

 

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1/19/2006 09:39:00 AM 0 comments

 

Before Katrina: Modern Day Debtors' Prison In Gulfport, MS

by Ben Greenberg

Gulfport, MS was in the news over the weekend with a jaw-dropping story. Saturday's US News & World Report told of a class action suit against the city, concerning what amounted to a debtors' prison before Hurricane Katrina:

Last July, a homeless man named Hubert Lindsey was stopped by police officers in Gulfport, Miss., for riding his bicycle without a light. The police soon discovered that Lindsey was a wanted man. Gulfport records showed he owed $4,780 in old fines. So, off to jail he went.

Legal activists now suing the city in federal court say it was pretty obvious that Lindsey couldn't pay the fines. According to their complaint, he lived in a tent, was unemployed, and appeared permanently disabled by an unseeing eye and a mangled arm. But without a lawyer to plead his case, the question of whether Lindsey was a scofflaw or just plain poor never came up. Nor did the question of whether the fines were really owed, or if it was constitutional to jail him for debts he couldn't pay. Nobody, the activists say, even bothered to mention alternatives like community service. The judge ordered Lindsey to "sit out" the fine in jail. That took nearly two months.

[U]p until Hurricane Katrina hit, [Gulfport police were] beating the pavement looking for those who owed fines for things like public profanity--at $222 a pop. The result of Gulfport's fine-reclamation project was that while it collected modest sums of money, it also packed the county jail with hundreds of people who couldn't pay. The Southern Center for Human Rights filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Gulfport last July. Attorney Sarah Geraghty says that before bringing the case against the city, she witnessed hundreds of court adjudications involving Gulfport's poor in which no defense attorney was present or even offered. Many defendants, Geraghty said, were obviously indigent, mentally ill, or physically disabled, like Hubert Lindsey; some had been jailed for fines they had already paid. One mentally ill woman attempted suicide by jumping from an elevated cell in the county jail after she was picked up for having failed to pay several city fines; the lawsuit alleges that police then grabbed her again on the same charge a few months later, causing her to miss the surgery scheduled to fix the broken bones in her feet.

As we attempt to understand the observable disparities in who gets relief and what gets rebuilt, it is important to keep in mind the city's demonstrated attitude towards its poor. It is also important to keep in mind what strips of pavement the city was beating and whom it tended to be looking for. The Amended Complaint from the lawsuit, which attorney Sarah Geraghty has sent me, describes

a special force of police officers charged with patrolling the streets of Gulfport to arrest citizens who have failed to pay fines assessed by the Gulfport Municipal Court. These officers conduct periodic sweeps, during which they search the streets for people who look as though they might the City old fines. During these sweeps, the officers go into predominantly African-American neighborhoods and stop people in the streets without any independent reason or suspicion, but for the sole purpose of checking to see if they owe the City old fines. Those who owe fines are taken to jail.

The state of Mississippi has the highest percentage of Black Americans in the country [PDF]. Second is Louisiana. Mississippi and Louisiana are pretty much tied for the highest poverty rates in the US, both hovering just below 20% statewide. We cannot discuss the effects of Katrina and the issues around reconstruction without serious, ongoing considerations of race and poverty.


Further Reading
• Sun Herald, "A lawsuit alleges that practices in Gulfport's Municipal Court are creating a DEBTORS PRISON"
• Southern Center for Human Rights Indigent Defense Cases In The News

Technorati Tags: activism, class, katrina, louisina, mississippi, poverty, race, racism

 

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1/17/2006 10:55:00 AM 1 comments

 

Gulf Coast Trip - January 22-29, 2006

by Ben Greenberg

This town has stood up in the face of things
Lots worse than a ninety mile wind
It's not bad storms I'm afraid of today
But the greed that our leaders walk in.

I'll walk along the Boardwalk rail
And feel and hear this ninety mile gale
I can hear the ocean mourn and groan
And I wonder about ships lost out in this storm.

So come on wind and blow out your brains
Blow like a Cyclone across the flat plains
This is just an echo of our world wide storm
That's ripping away our balls and our chains.

--Woody Guthrie, "Ninety Mile Wind" (1944)

This summer, I joined the Editorial Collective of Dollars & Sense. Since September I have been guest editing the March/April issue of the magazine, which we are devoting to economic issues in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

While New Orleans caught one edge of Hurricane Katrina, the storm hit the Gulf Coast of Mississippi head on, causing unfathomable destruction. Nonetheless news coverage of New Orleans has overshadowed, Mississippi. When the mainstream news media does report on Mississippi, we may hear about places like Waveland, Pass Christian, Gulfport, Bay St. Louis, and Biloxi, but we don't hear about the African Americans who live there. There are few images of Black Mississippians from the Gulf Coast and no discussion of their communities. Except for Waveland, all of these cities have African American populations that are larger than the national average of 12.3%. As of Census 2000, Pass Christian is 28.2% African American. Gulfport is 33.5% African American. In Bay St. Louis and Biloxi, the numbers are 16.6% and 19%, respectively.

As I have pursued writers who are local activists and survivors from the Gulf Coast region, I have been moved by the experiences of African American activists in Gulfport and Biloxi, whom I have had the opportunity to talk to. In Mississippi, as in New Orleans, the slow responses of FEMA and the Red Cross have harmed storm victims of many ethnicities and economic backgrounds. In both places, however, government inaction has especially harmed African Americans. At this writing, as recovery gets underway, white neighborhoods in Biloxi have been substantially cleaned up; on the other side of town, the African American neighborhood still looks like a bombed out war zone.

One of our writers for the March/April issue is an African American attorney, named Gayle. Gayle is in Gulfport, doing legal advocacy for Katrina survivors facing unfair, opportunistic evictions and other housing problems. She is also a hurricane survivor whose brother and two-year-old nephew died in the storm. Speaking with her on the phone has been overwhelming. In a number of our conversations, Gayle has connected me with other survivors who have lost loved ones or property or both and have first-hand experience of the unavailability of government disaster relief. They tell of FEMA trailers sitting unused in storage lots while survivors live in tents in winter weather; the outsourcing of jobs to corporate contractors; and price gouging on building materials.

The first time we spoke, Gayle expressed considerable gratitude that I cared enough to seek her out. There just hadn't been outside attention to the plights of people in her community, though it had been months since the storm hit. She was eager to write an article for Dollars & Sense, but she also said, urgently, "you have to come here... you just can't understand unless you see it... please come." When they heard about my conversations with Gayle and others from the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, the Dollars & Sense Collective agreed that in addition to publishing Gayle, we need to respond to her request.

Dollars & Sense is sending me to Gulfport and Biloxi, and to New Orleans, for eight days, from January 22 - 29. I will document my trip with still images, audio recordings, and video clips. While I am on the Gulf Coast, I will be posting to this blog, which we have just added to our website. To the extent that time and internet connections allow, I will provide regular updates and photos from my trip. In addition to the photos that you will find in posts here, I will post a larger selection of my photos on my flckr account.

After I return from the South, I will write a report of what I saw there for the March/April issue of Dollars & Sense, and possibly for other publications. I will also get the word out about survivors' experiences in the Gulf by presenting my audio, photographs and video through the Dollars & Sense website and live presentations. As with the March/April issue as a whole, we hope the information I gather on this trip will be useful for activists. The communities I visit will be allowed full access to the audio recordings, photos, and video that I make of them. I will also make a list of the local organizations we have been working with, and of others I may learn about on my trip, that directly address the needs of Katrina survivors; Dollars & Sense will publish the list in the March/April issue and on our website, and I will distribute it at presentations about my trip.

Dollars & Sense is a small non-profit organization on a shoe string budget. This may be the first time that Dollars & Sense has sent someone to do investigative work. If you would like to make a tax deductible donation to help us pay for the trip, you can make donations in $25 increments through our website, or send a check for any amount, with "Katrina Project" in the memo line, to Dollars & Sense, 29 Winter Street, Boston, MA 02108.

Technorati Tags: activism, blog, class, fema, katrina, louisina, mississippi, nola, race, racism, red cross

 

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1/16/2006 02:43:00 PM 0 comments