by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

On Friday, December 9th we arrived in Jackson, Miss. at the Anderson United Methodist Church as
community activist and New Orleans Katrina survivor Bro. Curtis Muhammad spoke. He said, “If
someone snatches you out of your home, puts a gun to your head, then pulls the trigger, but you duck
and they miss, are you going back to that person for help? The government pulled the trigger, but
missed.” This sentiment was expressed by Katrina survivors throughout the day long
“Survivor Assembly & National Conference” sponsored by the “People’s Hurricane
Relief Fund & Oversight Coalition (PHRF)”. PHRF was launched by Community Labor United (CLU)
after Hurricane Katrina, as it became clear that the government was not going to help folk hurt by
the storm.

The PHRF along with its self-help programs also has a list of demands for the government and
major organization which include:

1. Provide funds for all displaced families to be reunited;

2. Allocate the $50 billion for construction to the victims of the hurricane in the form of a
Victims Compensation Fund;

3. Promote the representation from actual survivors on all boards that are making decisions on
spending public dollars for relief and reconstruction;

4. Place displaced workers and residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in public works jobs,
offering union wages;

5. Publicly account for and show the entire reconstruction process.

Survivors of the hurricane that were shipped all over the country had much to say about how the
government treated them as they were being evacuated and since their deployment. Stories were told
about how two days after Katrina in the city of Gretna which was not flooded, people living in the
Fisher Projects were forced from their apartments at gun point by the police and military, loaded on
buses and shipped out of the city. A documentary called “I won’t drown on that levee &
you ain’t gonna break my back” was presented showing how inmates, mostly Black, were left to
drown in the Orleans County jail, but survived by bursting through the roof. Even after surviving
the immediate danger they were left in fetid water without food or clean water for 4 days.

Stories were told about how people were being evicted from their homes and apartments without
notice. Homes were being sold from beneath people without their knowledge or consent; insurance
companies refused to pay for damages to the victims’ homes; rent was doubled and tripled forcing
tenants out or preventing the poor from coming back; people received telephone bills, electric bills
and water bills in the hundreds of dollars for the period during which there was no telephone,
electric or municipal water service; young white vigilantes with guns kept Black people from going
to relief centers that were located on the other side of white neighborhoods; Black men were
prevented from coming into Black communities to get relatives out or bring supplies in; food was
dropped from helicopters from a height of 100 feet splattering in front of victims; there were no
medical facilities or means to get prescriptions filled; Black people were put in jail for curfew
violations while white folk partied in the French Quarter; people were called “niggers” by
the police and National guard; vigilantes dressed up to look like legitimate police or military; the
military and vigilantes shot down Black men trying to bring supplies to the women, children and old
people; number of dead has been severely undercounted; fences were put up around the Superdome after
whites were taken out and Blacks left to suffer.

After the victims were evacuated the stories persisted of how they were treated like convicts on
the evacuation buses and airplanes patrolled by armed guards. Women told the stories of how they
were treated like prisoners and disrespected by the maids at the hotels in Detroit. They complained
about how they were being bused around to rallies to raise money for major relief funds, but given
second-hand clothes and rags to wear and no money. They all complained about how the government did
not help and in most cases prevented the evacuees from communicating with each other or finding
family members.

They complained about how the media was not telling the truth about what happened. The survivors
stated that they want an independent investigation of how those levees broke. They also stated that
they wanted complete amnesty for all those accused of looting while they were struggling to survive.
The survivors knew about the aid offered by Cuba and Venezuela but stopped by the US government.
They expressed a willingness to independently seek support from those and other countries that wish
to help them.

Testimony by them highlighted the great love and concern that the Black people showed each other
throughout the crisis. They mentioned how Blacks set up their own clinics and that the first
responders in most cases were family members, friends and neighbors. Mention was made of how the
Millions More Movement mobilized to set back the December 1st eviction of 150,000 evacuees from
hotels across the country. Those deadlines have been moved from December 1st to the 15th and now
January 1st. Conferees pointed out that continued exposure of the situation and community outcry
could possibly force FEMA to move those dates further back and fulfill its promises of emergency
housing to be located in the New Orleans and Gulf Coast region.

The PHRF developed a set of strategies and committees to carry out ongoing programs of recovery.
You can find information or make donations by calling 1-888-310-PHRF or emailing info@communitylaborunited.net.

After leaving Jackson on December 10th we traveled south to Columbia, Miss where a meeting of the
Mississippi Black Farmers and Land Owners Association was held. The Black farmers were organizing to
support legislation being developed to help Black farmers who were either hurt or not helped by the
Pigford v. Glickman Black farmers’ lawsuit.

Even here the injustices perpetrated on them by FEMA in the aftermath of Katrina was exposed. A
76 year old Black woman testified that she received no assistance from FEMA although she lost
everything in the storm, while whites with little or no damage were getting large checks from FEMA.

However, the hypocrisy and political nature of how this disaster relief is moving forward was
highlighted by an eyewitness of such games. Mrs. Francis Guy said that she had attended a meeting of
Black preachers that was held in Marion county Miss. on Friday, December 9th where they were told by
a FEMA representative to be sure to fill out their application to receive FEMA money, because the
decision for how the money was to be dispersed was the following Wednesday and the checks would be
cut Thursday. She asked the people in attendance how many of them knew about their pastor attending
or applying for such monies. None knew anything about it, which prompted Mr. Sherri Jones from
Marion county to say, “Tomorrow when you go to church and your preacher begins to talk about
Job, tell him to tell you about FEMA.”