The Purpose of the New Origin Narrative
Our purpose for the New Origin Narrative is to collectively enhance the public with a historical narrative that will enable people to understand the history of Louisiana. As many people know Louisiana has been through devastated history of slavery, racism, and displacement. And the purpose of this international New Origin Narrative is to demonstrate how in many forms history has influenced the present. In other words, how racism still roams through the streets of Louisiana. For example, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. People have witness and experience the horrific displacement of the survivors of the hurricane, and the lack of aid. As a group of students from the University of California, Santa Cruz, we are challenging the different perspectives of the white origin narrative throughout different research and scholarly work. We have created an efficient New Origin Narrative that will enable us to analyzed the different overlaps of history and present.Paul Ortiz, associate professor of community studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Thank you Paul for giving us the opportunity to extend our horizons
Visit these important links
-To learn more about our Community Studies 126 Course, African American/Latino/a Histories click on our Course Blog
Guest Speaker:Akeem the Dream: Sess 4-5, No Surrender No Retreat;Nothing But Fire Records Akeem the Dream
Youtube Videos: Of people of New Orleans coming together to fight for the housing that is needed.
-Homeless Pride - March On Canal Street Merci Beaucoup Dinner. Homeless Pride
-Homeless Pride - March On Canal Street Merci Beaucoup Dinner. Homeless Pride-2nd part
-Gentrifying the Crescent City:The post-Katrina cityscape is rapidly being reshaped by developers and real estate speculators in ways that favor affluent home buyers, the tourist industry, and downtown property owners. Gentrifying the Crescent City
-The People's Hurricane website is dedicated to updating the public on what is going on in New Orleans after the Hurricane. It has relevant news articles, pictures, and stories that would be helpful to all those who wish to create a new origin narrative for Katrina. People's Hurricane
-The WW0Z 90.7 FM Jazz station in New Orleans is doing some amazing outreach regarding the Hurricane and Relief. This website has links to whats going on in the community, a pledge drive to support the music, and a lot of other cool links to the jazz community in New Orleans. WWOZ 90.7 Fm
-A Katrina Reader is dedicated to all the Katrina Survivors and Grassroots Racial Justice Organizations of New Orleans, who are fighting for the Right of Return of all 'Internally Displaced Persons,' and the Right to Rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast with justice, dignity and self-determination.To Learn More Click A Katrina Reader
Hurricane Katrina:Response and Responsibilities John Brown Childs Book-On August 29, 2005, the most destructive and costly natural disaster in the history of the United States struck the Gulf Coast, displacing over a million residents. Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath exposed deep problems in the social and political landscape of the United States. A clear divide was visible between those who were able to leave the city, and those who had to remain; between those who received quick and efficient aid, and those who languished; between black and white, rich and poor, old and young. In this book, scholars, writers, and activists take up the challenge of looking critically at the hurricane and the rifts in American society which it brought to light. They offer careful analysis of social inequalities, detailed criticism of the events following the hurricane, and possible ways of addressing the inequalities which it brought to light.To Learn More Click Hurricane Katrina Book
-The Hurricane Katrina Social Science Research Database and Hub is a platform for sharing information and promoting collaboration among social science researchers working on issues surrounding Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.To Learn More Click Social Science Research Council
Support Louisiana, New Orleans
View Active Organizations and Activist, who are providing A New Origin Narrative
Marchers Cross New Orleans Bridge to Protest Racism
Leaders from across the country gathered with local activists today in New Orleans to rally at the New Orleans Convention Center, where thousands had been stranded without food or medical care in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and to march across the Crescent City Connection bridge into the city of Gretna.-Steven Spring Foundation states, We're a New Orleans foundation dedicated to sharing the joy of music with the survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita To learn more click Steven Spring Foundation
-The mission of the Tipitina's Foundation is to restore Louisiana's irreplaceable music community and preserve the state's unique musical cultures. To learn more click Tipitina's-New Orleans, Louisiana
-ASHÉ CULTURAL ARTS CENTER is an effort to combine the intentions of neighborhood and economic development with the awesome creative forces of communtiy, culture and art to revive and reclaim a historically significant corridor in Central City New Orleans: Oretha Castle-Haley Boulevard, formerly known as Dryades Street.To learn more click ASHÉ CULTURAL ARTS CENTER
-SourceCode is a weekly, half-hour news-magazine program airing exclusively on Free Speech TV. We are renegade media-makers-turned-investigative journalists, covering progressive and alternative issues that rarely receive mainstream media attention. We partner with activist groups and other progressive and alternative media makers to put information about solutions to important issues in front of an audience hungry to participate in social change.To Learn More Click Here Source Code Reboot The System
- People's Orgagnizing Committee states, To build and maintain a coordinated network of community leaders, organizers and community based organizations with the capacity and organizational infrastructure that can help to meet the needs of people most impacted by Katrina and facilitate an organizing process that will demand local, grassroots leadership in the relief, return and reconstruction process in New Orleans. To volunteer click Summer Volunteer
-The New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition (NOWJC) has prioritized the establishment of the Louisiana Workers' Center to adequately address the long-term impact of this human and civil rights crisis voiced by the workers. The Center will be an independent, but collaborative, community-based organization advocating for and organizing workers in post-Katrina New Orleans in a multi-racial, multi-industry context.To learn more click NOWJC
-Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., Democracy Now! is broadcast on Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite television (DISH network: Free Speech TV ch. 9415 and Link TV ch. 9410; DIRECTV: Link TV ch. 375); and on the internet. DN!’s podcast is one of the most popular on the web.
Democracy Now!’s War and Peace Report provides our audience with access to people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S.corporate-sponsored media, including independent and international journalists, ordinary people from around the world who are directly affected by U.S. foreign policy, grassroots leaders and peace activists, artists, academics and independent analysts. In addition, Democracy Now! hosts real debates–debates between people who substantially disagree, such as between the White House or the Pentagon spokespeople on the one hand, and grassroots activists on the other. Visit Democracy Now!
-Action Without Borders connects people, organizations, and resources to help build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives.AWB is independent of any government, political ideology, or religious creed. Our work is guided by the common desire of our members and supporters to find practical solutions to social and environmental problems, in a spirit of generosity and mutual respect.To Learn More Click Idealist Action Without Borders
-SourceCode Video:Activist group that collected stories from people who are involved in changing Hurricane Katrina. People such as, former Black Panther Malik Rahim, who refused to leave Algiers and instead established a rescue center.Travel along with the grassroots and distributed aid network Food Not Bombs, whose members got in their vans and cars and showed up to feed disaster survivors who had been abandoned by all other governmental and official relief efforts. Spoken word artist Chris Chandler contributes a piece incorporating music, poetry, and photographic montage.Visit Organizations That Helped With Enviromental Racism
Video On the Civil Rights Movement and slavery in the past and how it connects to Hurricane Katrina.The generation of activists that created America�s Civil Rights Movement is speaking up about New Orleans. C.C. Campbell-Rock from the San Francisco Bay View talks with former Freedom Rider and civil rights activist Jerome Smith about racism, class and reconstruction.View Civil Rights Past And Future
-Youtube:ReachOutCCC - New Orleans 2007
Facts about New Orleans, Louisiana
-Katrina exposed the deadly intersection of race, poverty, immigration status and toxic waste, but dangerous environmental conditions already existed
-Contract workers, overwhelmingly immigrant, brought in from outside the region for cleanup and reconstruction, were subjected to dangerous exploitation, given inadequate water, shelter, and thoroughly inadequate equipment for hazardous work.
-Latinos, or anyone who "looked or sounded" foreign, were evicted en masse from Red Cross shelters, accused of being undocumented immigrants stopping them from seeking disaster relief.
-Immigrant contract workers were being abandoned by their employers in the bayou, in the streets or, if they were lucky,in Red Cross shelters, where they were harassed, evicted, and denied assistance.
-Many of the local doctors and nurses were forced to leave New Orleans because their homes and offices were damaged. Those who have stayed have helped people without insurance.
-Poor, rural Southern African-American communities were among the first to use the term environmental racism in fighting toxic siting.3 Gulf Coast African-American environmental justice activists have been leaders of the national movement, in part because of the extensive problems they face from toxic/ chemical pollution from oil refineries and petrochemical facilities.
-Of the 5,100 New Orleans public housing units occupied before Katrina,number that are now occupied:about 1,500 (2007).
-While EPA assured New Orleans residents that they were being protected from the risk of demolition-related asbestos inhalation the number of air monitors the agency installed in the predominantly African-American Lower Ninth Ward,were demolition work has been concentrated:0
-Testing has found dangerous levels of heavy metals and other contaminants,with lead readings in some spots two-thirds higherthan what EPA deems safe.