Spike Lee touched on this incident in his four-part HBO film “When the Levees Broke” but this goes into the real heart of what happened in Algiers Point. If Donnell Herrington looks familiar it’s because he tells part of his story in the Lee film.
I have a sister who calls the Point home. It’s no wonder we haven’t spoken in 30 years.
This from A. C. Thompson in The Nation:
Facing an influx of refugees, the residents of Algiers Point could have pulled together food, water and medical supplies for the flood victims. Instead, a group of white residents, convinced that crime would arrive with the human exodus, sought to seal off the area, blocking the roads in and out of the neighborhood by dragging lumber and downed trees into the streets. They stockpiled handguns, assault rifles, shotguns and at least one Uzi and began patrolling the streets in pickup trucks and SUVs. The newly formed militia, a loose band of about fifteen to thirty residents, most of them men, all of them white, was looking for thieves, outlaws or, as one member put it, anyone who simply "didn't belong."This is video from the film "Katrina’s Hidden War":
The Nation story is long and may make your blood boil at times, but it’s important to get to the bottom of what really happened and how the white residents react to this day.
And so it goes.
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I am convinced that part of the Bush handling of Katrina was a result of their conclusion that this hurricane gave them the opportunity to disperse the lower income (and usually Democratic-voting) precincts into other areas. As long a the nice white historic areas of the city were saved, there was no need to save anything else.
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