“We’re back! We’re back!” chanted the protesters. Many residents displaced from the city since Hurricane Katrina returned to take part in the action. A significant percentage came from Houston, Dallas, and Austin, Texas; Baton Rouge and Lafayette, Louisiana; and other cities in the region.

More than 300,000 people have been displaced in the storm’s aftermath. Many have experienced rent-gouging landlords and inaction by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to demands for housing or other assistance. About 65,000 people now live in New Orleans, a city of half a million people before Katrina.

Several buses brought protesters from a “Justice After Katrina” conference held December 8-9 in Jackson, Mississippi. About 300 people attended, including many affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Gulf Coast states. Demands drawn up in Jackson were delivered to New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin. They included immediate relief from evictions and price gouging by landlords, and decent housing for evacuees.

“We want our voices heard,” said Malcolm Suber from the steps of City Hall. “The government promises everything and gives you nothing.” Suber called on city authorities to postpone the Mardi Gras celebration, normally held in February, until residents return.

Suber and Cherice Harrison-Nelson are co-chairs of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition, the group that organized the Jackson conference and rally here. Both are New Orleans residents who now live in Houston.

Other speakers included Sarah White, a board member of the Mississippi Workers Center and a representative of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1529, which represents catfish workers in Mississippi. “It just didn’t start in New Orleans,” White said. “For years we have been down on the Mississippi Delta, we have been harassed, mistreated, hung, killed. So the fight against racism did not just start here, but this is where we want to end it. We have to fight it.”

Representatives of the New Black Panther Party, Nation of Islam, National Black United Front, and the Houston-based Shrine of the Black Madonna also spoke. Mandu from the African cultural organization Sankofa came to the event from Switzerland. He gave greetings on behalf of those of African heritage living in that country.

Bilal Mustafaa Mustaqeem, 32, worked in a printing plant here that was destroyed by the storm. He took part in the Jackson conference and said he came here to tell his story about being jailed and severely beaten for no reason by New Orleans cops after Katrina. When his sisters, who witnessed the beating, protested, the cops jailed them too, he said. “My sisters took pictures of the sores on my back from being stomped on and poked with a shotgun barrel. When we said we were going to file a complaint, they jailed me and wouldn’t release the women for two days.” Mustaqueem said he was locked up for 60 days. He now resides in New York.

Brian Thompson, 40, a member of the Metal Trades Council at the Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, resides in Biloxi. “I’m concerned that none of the people hit by Katrina are overlooked,” he told the Militant. “That’s why I’m standing here in solidarity with all of us in the Gulf Coast.” Thompson, who is back on his job, said 30 percent of his co-workers are still laid off.

Cynthia Banks drove here from Dallas in a van with 10 other evacuees. Banks lost her home and business in the heavily flooded New Orleans East area. “Something is seriously wrong,” she said. “The mayor tells us, ‘Come back to our city.’ But you look around and say to yourself, ‘What city?’”

Rhonda Maberry, an unemployed nurse practitioner, is a leader of the National Association of Katrina Evacuees. “I found an eviction notice on my pillow saying that I had to be out of my hotel room by December 15,” she said. Because of this, Maberry is now returning to her home here, which still has no gas. “The electricity was just turned on this week,” she said.

“It was great and we need more of this,” said Muriel Lewis, who belongs to the same group as Maberry. She beamed with pride at the first mass action here to protest the deepening social crisis.

Karl Butts contributed to this article.
 
 
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