All Stripes and Shades March For Katrina Victims
The Washington Informer, News Report, Taaq Kirksey, Posted: Mar 16, 2006
A protest march aimed at stable housing and voting rights for Hurricane Katrina evacuees grew from few to a few hundred in an hour as it threaded through Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon.
The marchers were there to gain awareness on the Hill for House Bill 4197, a comprehensive legislative package to restabilize the Gulf for its displaced residents.
“America should never be a third world country,” said Ali Salahuddin of the activist group Hip Hop Caucus which co-coordinated the event. “We are going back to slavery times.” The marchers’ estimation of the damage wrought by Katrina was uniformly grim and consistent with one result for the people: genocide and mass gentrification.
“Every year there’s a certain segment of the population that they want gone,” said Ward 7 resident Gwen Bing. “I just pray that the whole truth comes out.” Nansie Word, executive director of the NAACP’s National Convention – to be held here in the District in July – said her hope was that “[Congress] will support [H.R. 4197] so the victims can begin to stabilize their lives.”
University of Maryland student Daniel Lewkowicz linked the tragedy of Katrina to the War in Iraq. “Things suffer at home when you have wars abroad … what do we care about now? Our pride or our people?” Leukowicz’s political activism group Community Roots led the march – from the Rayburn House Building to the Capitol and on to the White House – and passed out information for the uninformed on the Hill.
To combat further marginalization of evacuees, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) introduced H.R. 4197 in November “to provide for the recovery, reclamation, restoration and reconstruction of lives and communities and … to address the issues of poverty exposed by Hurricane Katrina.”
In recent weeks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has come under fire for terminating evacuees’ temporary housing in hotels, one in a continuing line of controversies for the organization.
The bill includes a number of restorative measures aimed at addressing evacuees’ grievances with FEMA and other aspects of post-Katrina policy:
• funding to restore Katrina victims to their pre-disaster financial conditions;
• Environmental Protection Agency-regulated cleanup and detoxification efforts;
• forgiveness of college loan debts and rebuilding of secondary schools and colleges in the Gulf region;
• maximum $5,000 tax credits for displaced families who return to buy or build homes in affected areas;
• reimbursement of businesses “that performed services that should have been performed by FEMA”.
The bill even goes as far as to suggest that President Bush create at plan to eradicate poverty in the nation within the next decade.
Jared Ball, professor of African American Studies at the University of Maryland-College Park, said the inefficient response to Katrina’s aftermath personally served to “reinforce [African Americans’] colonized status.” He added that preventing further injustices would require “properly organizing when the cameras are off.”
Related Stories:
Many Black Students Put Off Spring Break Partying to Help Rebuild Gulf
From outrage to action: Justice after Katrina
Displaced of Katrina Struggle to Secure Their Future
Hurricane Katrina < NAM Coverage
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