Organized by our friends at the Applied Research Center, Facing Race 2010 features lively discussions on today's hot-button race issues while offering models for real change.
As a hip hop artist, mother, educator, and community activist, Green For All Fellow Zakiya Harris is constantly developing new ways to reconnect our communities to our legacy as stewards of earth.
As August draws to a close, we face a somber, sobering anniversary. Five years ago, on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The storm — and the horrifying ineptitude of the relief efforts before, during, and after — left the region devastated. Most of those who died or were abandoned to "sink or swim" were poor people, people
of color, or both.
Five years after Hurricane Katrina, one of the most striking problems in the recovery from the storm has been that states are exercising too much power and the federal government too little. This imbalance has had a terrible impact on poor communities.
After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans residents were scattered all over the country. Rebuilding our community was the most pressing — and most daunting — task facing Mary Queen of Viet Nam Community Development Corporation (MQVN CDC). We organized to help our congregation come home, and about 90% of the people who lived near the church returned.
In the southeastern Louisiana bayou parishes of Lafourche and Terrebonne, BISCO (Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing) builds the voice and power of local residents to address the most pressing issues facing their communities. The disasters of the last five years — Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008, and the BP Oil Drilling Disaster this year — have severely impacted our two parishes. The fallout from these disasters may seem local, but are important regionally and nationally.
Five years after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, much of our work at the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice has been focused on research, policy, community outreach and assistance, and education needs of the displaced minority population of New Orleans.
I am a Green For All Fellow, and I love it. In July, I got to take part in a Green for All Academy Convening in Washington, D.C. where I had the chance to work with other Fellows to think and talk about how best to support one another's work in rural and urban communities across the nation. In addition to talking with each other, we also got to deliver a clear message to Senators about America's need for a strong climate and energy bill.
When oil was steadily gushing out of BP's broken oil pipeline into the Gulf of Mexico, we were all desperate to stop the flow and get the oil that had already spilled safely out of the water. Sadly, we paid too little attention to where that oil would go once clean-up workers removed it from the Gulf waters. Now we know: far too much of it is being dumped in communities of color.
This past Saturday, something truly special happened at a small, community park in the heart of Oakland, California. For the third year in a row, local group Grind for the Green — headed by Green For All Academy Fellow Zakiya Harris — produced "Fresh Fest," a youth-led, solar-powered hip-hop concert and eco-fest. The first two were in San Francisco, but this year Fresh Fest moved to Oakland, and local groups and artists really made it a day to remember.
