Our First Guest Blogger: Mayaba Liebenthal

The Opportunity Agenda invited writer and activist Mayaba Liebenthal to write a daily travelogue as she participates in this week’s Gulf region “Hear Me Now Listening Tour” hosted by the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

 

From August 23 to 30, Mayaba will be riding a bus from city to city – from New Orleans to Mobile, AL, Gulfport and Moss Point, MI, Lafayette and Baton Rouge, LA, talking with communities of color as they rebuild their lives.  In this travelogue, she shares her thoughts and observations.

August 24: Mobile, Alabama

We boarded the bus in New Orleans early this morning and officially began our travels.  I’m here with New York videographer Diana Nikkah, gathering stories and footage for an upcoming "Women of Katrina" documentary, being produced by The Opportunity Agenda, DeepDish TV, and several New Orleans filmmakers.   The doc will be part of a series called Trouble the Water and will focus on the voices and concerns of communities that have been most marginalized up till now in the rebuilding process.

Passing through New Orleans East over the Twin Span, I had flashes of evacuating the city last year, as I headed ultimately to Alexandria, Louisiana.  I remember that day before the storm, wind already quickening, passing a family, one wheelchair-bound grandmother, one mother with her three children and all their belongings waiting for the bus to the Superdome. One family headed towards the city, thousands headed the other away.  These are my memories as we travel to Mobile.

Mobile, Alabama, is a city that has still not recovered even from Hurricane Ivan – a storm that struck this region in 2004. Listening to women’s stories about the government and insurance companies, it was hard to believe they weren’t talking about Katrina. It seems that FEMA’s response post-Ivan was also slow and inadequate.  Insurance companies exhibited the same biases against less expensive properties and refused to pay for flood damage.

A year after Katrina, Mobile residents are still having problems with basic needs.  Grocery stores still run out of staple items – residents say that they shouldn’t have to go to five different stores to find basics like sugar and meat.  Food supplies in some areas are still strained due to the influx of people from more devastated areas. Regardless of the strained supplies, people here have a lot of compassion for the evacuees. 

A reoccurring theme in the discussion was that the hurricane worsened preexisting problems in low-income African American communities. Poor education due to overcrowded schools became even worse as schools became overloaded with new displaced students. Skilled jobs are scarce, and now recovering survivors are in desperate need of work. It is especially difficult for women to find jobs in the absence of schools and adequate childcare. Children make up a staggering proportion of the displaced residents, 12,000 preschool-age children living in female-headed households within Katrina's disaster zone,

One of the biggest challenges people face is where to find information of all kinds – about childcare, health services, how to apply for relief services, loans, and where to go for advice.  So while there may be resources available for rebuilding, there isn’t enough outreach being done to let people know about them.  Not many of them are plugged into the internet, and so getting information is often about who you know.  According to residents here, the city, state, and federal governments communicate poorly, making the application processes and systems difficult to navigate.

The women here tonight had suggestions though. They felt that it would be better if information about services could be available at one key site – a place where community members could go to learn about healthcare issues, apply for loans, find out about childcare services and jobs.  I learned that, as people returned, many residents went to their churches for this kind of information.   Uncomfortable or inexperienced in dealing with official government entities, or concerned about prior encounters with the law, these communities turned to the church, not FEMA, for information and support.

The importance of grassroots organizing was another key theme this evening.  Grassroots organizing post-Katrina gives community groups the chance to come together, build networks, and develop systems of resource sharing.

Eighty-nine year old Ailene Woodyard is a testament to grassroots organizing. 

Today in her oversized teal moomoo, Ms. Woodyard is a fixture in this Pritchard, AL community.  There is even a street named after her. Some still recall that thirty years ago, she collected over 250 signatures in a single evening to petition the local government to build a school in her community. Ms. Woodyard explained that this was an important time for the faith community to fortify and rebuild itself.  So far, many of the stops have been hosted by churches.  Four women bishops joined us at various stops along the way.

As I think about the roomful of women talking in Mobile, I see that women are the glue of this community.  It was empowering today to see members of the Black business community join with faith leaders on this tour.  Members of black sororities AKA and the Deltas were well represented here, too.

Tomorrow we’re off to Gulfport and other Mississippi cities.