The desolation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina necessitated the evacuation, repopulation, and reconstruction of the city. Historic social, economic, and political divisions conditioned that process, both reflecting and exacerbating racial tensions. The lack of trust between blacks and whites generated rumors and, for many, explanations for the slow response to cries for relief, the attempts to restrict black mobility in the immediate aftermath of the storm, and fears of exclusion or other-race domination in the post-Katrina political era. Contemporary opportunists and exploiters of such racial divisions lent their weight to the support of traditional racial reactions. The strategy, tactics, and outcomes of the first post-Katrina elections thus revealed the deep influence of pre-Katrina values and behavior in the rebuilding process. Under such conditions, that process remains halting, mired in racial and political conflict, and seemingly unable to make a break with a racially burdened past.
"Cold-War Device Used to Cause Katrina?," USA Today, September 20, 2005.
2.
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, directed by Spike Lee (Home Box Office, 2006).
3.
Arnold R. Hirsch , "Simply a Matter of Black and White: The Transformation of Race and Politics in Twentieth-century New Orleans," in Arnold R. Hirsch and Joseph Logsdon, eds., Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization (Baton Rouge, LA, 1992), chap. 6; Arnold R. Hirsch , "Race and Politics in Modern New Orleans: The Mayoralty of Dutch Morial," Amerikastudien/American Studies35 (1990): 461-85.
4.
"Whites Take a Majority on New Orleans' Council," New York Times, November 19, 2007.
5.
"Blanco Tours New Orleans," Times-Picayune , September 7, 2005; "FEMA Denied State's Request for Rescue Rafts as Katrina Approached," Times-Picayune, January 30, 2006.
6.
For background on urban renewal, see Mark Gelfand, A Nation of Cities (New York, 1975); John Mollenkopf, The Contested City ( Princeton, NJ, 1983); Jon Teaford, The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America, 1940-1985 ( Baltimore, 1990); Robert Caro, Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (New York, 1974); Scott Greer, Urban Renewal and American Cities (Indianapolis, IN, 1964); and James Q. Wilson, ed., Urban Renewal: The Record and the Controversy (Cambridge, MA, 1966). Individual case studies abound, and a provocative review essay that covers recent housing policy historiography is D. Bradford Hunt, "Rethinking the Retrenchment Narrative in U.S. Housing Policy History," Journal of Urban History32 (September 2006): 937-50.
7.
For general histories of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, see Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (New York, 2006); Michael Eric Dyson, Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster (Cambridge, MA, 2006); Ivor van Heerden and Mike Bryan, The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina-The Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist (New York, 2007); Center for Public Integrity Investigation, City Adrift: New Orleans Before and After Katrina (Baton Rouge, LA, 2007); See also Jed Horne, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City (New York, 2006); Chester Hartman and Gregory D. Squires, eds., There Is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class and Hurricane Katrina ( New York, 2006); Sally Forman, Eye of the Storm: Inside City Hall During Katrina (Bloomington, IN, 2007); and Chris Rose, One Dead in Attic (New Orleans, 2005).
8.
W. Edward Orser, Blockbusting in Baltimore: The Edmondson Village Story ( Lexington, KY, 1994); Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960 ( Chicago, 1998); Mary Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago , 2007).
9.
Michael B. Katz, ed., The "Underclass" Debate (Princeton, NJ, 1993); Oscar Lewis, "The Culture of Poverty," in G. Gmelch and W. Zenner, eds., Urban Life: Readings in the Anthropology of the City ( Long Grove, IL, 1996); Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America ( New York, 1991).
10.
Stephen Grant Meyer, As Long as They Don't Move Next Door: Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods (Lanham, MD, 2000); Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto; Orser, Blockbusting in Baltimore; Kenneth D. Durr, Behind the Backlash: White Working Class Politics in Baltimore, 1940-1980 ( Chapel Hill, NC, 2003).
11.
John M. Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (New York, 1997), 222, 257, 339.
12.
"Blanco Demands Apology," Times-Picayune, September 1, 2005; "Troops Told `Shoot to Kill' in New Orleans,"ABC News Online, September 2, 2005 .
13.
"Mayor Nagin Speaks Out," Times-Picayune, September 10, 2005.
14.
Brinkley, GreatDeluge, 381.
15.
A grand jury refused to indict Dr. Anna Pou on charges that she murdered nine of her patients in the days after Hurricane Katrina. Pou still faces four civil suits in connection with the deaths. "Grand Jury Refuses to Indict Anna Pou," Times-Picayune, July 25, 2007. Sal and Mabel Mangano also were "found innocent of negligent homicide in the drowning deaths of 25 elderly residents in their St. Bernard Parish nursing home during Hurricane Katrina." "Manganos Not Guilty in St. Rita's Nursing Home Case," Times-Picayune, September 7, 2007. For anecdotal evidence of the assistance extended across racial lines, see Eileen Guillory , "Facing the Storm: An Oral History of Elderly Survivors of Katrina" (paper presented at the Fifteenth International Oral History Association Conference, Guadalajara , Mexico, September 23-26, 2008).
16.
"Some GOP Legislators Hit Jarring Notes in Addressing Katrina ," Washington Post, September 10, 2005.
17.
Dan Baum , "Porch Duty: Report from Carrollton," The New Yorker, September 12, 2005.
18.
Leon F.Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long : The Aftermath of Slavery ( New York, 1979), 296-326.
19.
Brinkley, Great Deluge, 469.
20.
Lyle Kenneth Perkins, "Failing the Race: The Historical Assessment of New Orleans Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, 1986-1984" (MA thesis, Louisiana State University, 2002), 22-23.
21.
Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long, 314.
22.
"St. Bernard Sued over Rent Limit; Group Says New Law Upholds Segregation," Times-Picayune, October 4, 2006 .
23.
Ibid.
24.
Black activist Daniel Buford lectures that "hurricanes follow the path of the slave ships." "Hurricanes Follow Path of Slave Ships," Louisiana Weekly, September 26, 2005. Jesse Jackson, upon seeing the Convention Center where thousands had been stranded for days after the storm, said, "This looks like the hull of a slave ship." "Katrina's Racial Storm," Chicago Tribune, September 8, 2005. On February 28, 2008, a federal judge ordered St. Bernard Parish to pay $32,500 in damages to the New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center and a local landowner who brought suit and challenged the September 2006 ordinance in court. Parish officials were not compelled to admit any "wrongdoing" and claimed "victory" on that basis. See "Judge OKs Accord in Housing Bias Suit," Times-Picayune, February 29, 2008.
25.
"Far from Full: Lost in the Debate about the Demolition of N.O. Housing Developments Is One Fact: There Are Hundreds of Units Available Right Now," Times-Picayune, December 16, 2007 .
26.
"HANO Gets OK to Raise 4500 Units," Times-Picayune , September 22, 2007; "HANO Balks at Tearing Down Lafitte," Times-Picayune, December 11, 2007.
27.
For a more detailed account of the 2006 mayoral election, see Arnold R. Hirsch, "Fade to Black: Hurricane Katrina and the Disappearance of Creole New Orleans," Journal of American History34, no. 3 (December 2007): 752-61.
28.
"Judge Puts Demolitions in Hands of Council," Times-Picayune, December 15, 2007.
29.
"Election Results Reflect Racial Shift," Times-Picayune, November 19, 2007.
30.
One straw in a cross-cutting political wind was the recent 7-0 vote of the City Council to demolish those contested public-housing units. Defying expectations that they would be racially divided, the Council's unity held forth the promise of a different future-if they could deliver not only on the demolition but also the subsequent provision of more and better affordable housing.
