Race and the high ground in New Orleans.

• Author: Mann, Eric
• Position: African american statistics

The night before Hurricane Katrina struck, New Orleans was a city of almost 500,000 people, two-thirds of whom were African-American (black). It was typical of many U.S. urban centers today, after years of government-is-the-problem governance: its schools and social services were falling apart. More than 142,000 people were living in poverty, of whom 84 percent were black, and most of whom still labored from sunup to sundown without making a living wage. Many blacks were unemployed; more than 13 percent officially, and a far higher share if one counted those permanently "discouraged." (The national average was 4.9 percent in August 2005, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics). In New Orleans, "poor" and "black" were virtually synonymous.

For those who worked and who could not find work alike, there was the constant threat of incarceration, often for the most minor of infractions. Louisiana is the prison capital of the United States, with the highest state per-capita incarceration rates: 173,000 people locked up out of a population of 4.5 million people. Blacks account for 32 percent of Louisiana's population but 75 percent of the prisoners.

The most flood-vulnerable area of the city, the Lower 9th Ward, was 98 percent black. Other neighborhoods below sea level included Eastern Orleans (over 80 percent black), and the lowlands of Mid-City, Bywater, and Gentilly, all with high percentages of black residents. Even in the central city area, whites lived on the land above sea level: the Garden District (89 percent white), Audubon (86 percent), Touro (74 percent), and the French Quarter (90 percent). People in New Orleans know that the class and race distinctions in the city correspond to the sea levels of the residents. The poorest are forced to endure the risks of life below sea level because that is where the most "affordable" housing is.

On August 29 a black city, called by activists the most Afro-centric city in the United States, was almost literally blown off the face of the Earth. At least 1,836 people were killed, 70 percent or more of them black. The bungled and chaotic evacuation effort scattered more than a quarter of a million black people to the winds. The majority went to Shreveport and Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Houston, Texas; and Atlanta, Georgia, but New Orleans activists say that the dispossessed and dispersed members of the black community are in 44 states. Many of them are still trying to find their way home.

Rebuild to Redress

These facts will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the history of racism in the United States. The wholesale devastation of Hurricane Katrina fell most heavily on the poor and black, just as the impact of natural disasters worldwide falls...