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Standing up for Survivors Village and housing justice
January 25, 2012
Protestors chanted: This auction is illegal and immoral. It is a way to steal homes, redistribute wealth and prevent the right to return. The sale of blighted property is the city’s attempt to remove poor homeowners who have already suffered tremendously from economic and natural disaster.s.
Reflections on organizing towards collective liberation at Occupy NOLA
November 15, 2011
I have been invigorated and moved by the energy surrounding Occupy NOLA. Yet I’ve been faced with the tensions being articulated by so many folks on the Left: How can this energy be connected to and further long-standing organizing work for social and economic justice?
Dick Gregory protests BP’s treatment of oil spill victims
October 28, 2011
Veteran comedian and activist Dick Gregory was arrested Sept. 3 for blocking the entrance way in a protest against British Petroleum for its handling of a $20 billion victims’ compensation fund, yet his protests continue.
Six years after Katrina, the battle for New Orleans continues
September 1, 2011
As this weekend’s storm has reminded us, hurricanes can be a threat to U.S. cities on the East Coast as well the Gulf. But the vast changes that have taken place in New Orleans since Katrina have had little to do with weather and everything to do with political struggles.
New Orleans six years later: The disaster is not over
August 26, 2011
The storm that brushed by New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, was never the cause of the disaster. The real disaster began immediately after the storm when the city’s white supremacist economic elite and its “colored” collaborators decided to remake the city in their image, which strongly resembles a 21st century plantation. All people who believe in social justice should make it a point to march on Aug. 29 from the base of the Industrial Canal in the 9th Ward at 10 a.m. to Hunters Field.
Blacks win Katrina suit
August 17, 2011
New Orleans – Black homeowners and two civil rights organizations announced July 7 a settlement in a post-Hurricane Katrina housing discrimination lawsuit brought against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the state of Louisiana regarding the “Road Home” program.
From heroes to villains: NOPD verdict reveals post-Katrina history
August 12, 2011
In an historic verdict with national implications, five New Orleans police officers were convicted on Friday of civil rights violations for killing unarmed African Americans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and could face life in prison when sentenced later this year.
Prosecution rests case in Danziger trial
July 31, 2011
The prosecution rested its case last week in the Danziger Bridge police violence trial with one final witness testimony, perhaps the most moving, from Lesha Bartholomew. Bartholomew broke into tears as she described seeing her mother wounded, with her arm nearly shot off.
Devastating report exposes unequal treatment of BP illness claims
July 31, 2011
Kenneth Feinberg, administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) set up in the aftermath of the BP drilling disaster, has denied all damage claims for illnesses associated with exposure to the toxic BP crude oil and/or toxic chemical dispersants that were applied to the oil spill.
New Orleans young Rethinkers take on ‘Candy Bars, Prison Bars’
July 28, 2011
Two of the nation’s most pressing issues involving young people — childhood obesity and violence — are indeed connected. How so? Just ask the Rethinkers. The correlation between unhealthy food choices and crime and violence was at the focal point of this year’s Rethink press conference.
New Orleans police violence trial begins
June 29, 2011
Opening arguments begin today in what observers have called the most important trial New Orleans has seen in a generation. It is a shocking case of police brutality that has already redefined this city’s relationship to its police department and radically rewritten the official narrative of what happened in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina.
Louisiana Legislature votes to parole some elderly prisoners
June 28, 2011
The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the passage of a bill in the Louisiana legislature making it easier for elderly prisoners to get a parole hearing as an important step towards reducing the state’s unnecessarily high prison population.
New Orleans news from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
May 16, 2011
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund Project Vote and New Orleans attorney Ronald Wilson filed a complaint in federal court alleging that Louisiana is disenfranchising minority and low-income voters by failing to offer them the opportunity to register to vote as required by the National Voter Registration Act.
Judge hands out tough sentences in post-Katrina killing by police
April 4, 2011
On March 31, a federal judge sentenced two former New Orleans police officers for killing Henry Glover and incinerating his body during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One got 25 years for shooting Glover with an assault rifle and the other got 17 years for torching the man’s corpse.
The Black mayor of Waterproof, Louisiana, has spent nearly a year behind bars without bail
March 25, 2011
A legal dispute in the rural Louisiana town of Waterproof has attracted the attention of national civil rights organizations and activists. Waterproof Mayor Bobby Higginbotham has been held without bail since May of 2010.
New Orleans Council votes to shrink city’s jail size
March 10, 2011
On Feb. 3 the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously to pass an ordinance authorizing the construction of a new jail that’s much smaller than what had previously been planned, marking a major effort to downsize the city’s swelling prison population.
Eight homeless youth die in New Orleans fire: What does it say about US?
December 30, 2010
Eight young people, who the Fire Department said were “trying to stay warm,” perished in a raging fire during the night of Dec. 28 in New Orleans. Will we look into our abandoned buildings and look into the eyes of our abandoned daughters and sons and sisters and brothers? Will our nation address unemployment, high housing costs and low wages? Or will the fires continue and the lives end?
The incarceration capitol of the U.S.
December 20, 2010
With 3,500 beds in a city of about 350,000 residents, Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) is already the largest per capita county jail of any major U.S. city. Sheriff Marlin Gusman, the elected official with oversight over the jail, has submitted plans for an even larger complex.
‘Go home to New Orleans – you do Voodoo!’ say Houston slumlords and employers
December 20, 2010
New Orleans Katrina survivor and advocate Eugenia Brown, still unable to return home, was told by her landlord in Houston that there are laws for people from New Orleans and there are laws for the people from Texas. She asks, is this fair?
Beyond protest: Rethinkers’ music conveys solutions
October 11, 2010
The Rethinkers, a group of motivated middle school students from New Orleans, are creating their own revolution within the resurgent New Orleans schools and are attracting broad press attention as they do so, including recent coverage by ABC-TV News and The Huffington Post.
