Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race, and Public Policy Reader(Critical Black Studies)

Hurricane Katrina of August-September 2005, one of the most destructive natural disasters in U.S. history, dramatically illustrated the continuing racial and class inequalities of America. In this powerful reader, Seeking Higher Ground, prominent scholars and writers examine the racial impact of the disaster and the failure of governmental, corporate and private agencies to respond to the plight of the New Orleans black community. Contributing authors include Julianne Malveaux, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Ronald Walters, Chester Hartman, Gregory D. Squires, Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Alan Stein, and Gene Preuss. This reader is the second volume of the Souls Critical Black Studies Series, edited by Manning Marable, and produced by the institute for Research in African-American Studies of Columbia University.

Table of Contents:
Seeking Higher Ground: Race, Public Policy, and the Hurricane Katrina Crisis - Manning Marable * PART I: POLITICS AND PLACE * The New Orleans Mayoral Election: The Voting Rights Act and the Politics of Return and Rebuild - Ronald Walters * The New Orleans that Race Built: Racism, Disaster, and Urban Spatial Relationships - Darwin Bond Graham * Race-ing the Post-Katrina Political Landscape: An Analysis of the 2006 New Orleans Election - Kristen Clarke * Property and Security, Political Chameleons, and Dysfunctional Regime: A New Orleans Story - Osei Robertson * Hurricane Katrina as Postscript to Racialized Spaces in Louisiana - Animashaun Ducre * Interview: A Conversation with Judge Ivan L. R. Lemelle - Suzette Malveaux * PART II: CULTURE, TRADITION, AND IDENTITY * New Orleans' African American Musical Traditions: The Spirit and Soul of a City - Michael White * Hero, Eulogist, Trickster, and Critic: Ritual and Crisis in Post-Katrina Mardi Gras - Chelsey Louise Kivland * (Re)Imagining Ethnicity in the City of New Orleans: Katrina's Geographical Allegory - Stephanie Houston Grey * The Rebuilding of a Tourist Industry: Immigrant Labor Exploitation in the Post-Katrina Reconstruction of New Orleans - Loren K. Redwood * PART III: RACE AND REPRESSION * "Do You Know What It Means?:" Mapping Emotion in the Aftermath of Katrina - Melissa Harris-Lacewell * Witness: The Gendered Implications of Katrina - Kathleen A. Bergin * The Impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Race and Class Divide in America - Thomas J. Durant, Jr.& Dawood Sultan * Katrina's Southern "Exposure:" The Kanye Race Debate and the Repercussions of Discussion - Erica Czaja * Oral History, Folklore, and Katrina - Alan H. Stein& Gene B. Preuss * PART IV: REIMAGINING THE PAST AND RECONSTRUCTING THE FUTURE * What Happens When the Footprints Shrink: New Orleans and the End of Eminence - Julianne Malveaux * "The City I Used to . . .Visit:" Tourist New Orleans and the Racialized Response to Hurricane Katrina - Lynell Thomas * The Social Construction of Disaster: New Orleans as the Paradigmatic American City - Chester Hartman& Gregory D. Squires * Are They Katrina's Kids or Ours?: The Experience of Displaced New Orleans Students in Their New Schools and Communities - Kevin Michael Foster * Envisioning "Complete Recovery" as an Alternative to "Unmitigated Disaster" - Mindy Thompson Fullilove

About the Author :
Manning Marable is Professor of Historyand Political Science and Director, Institute for Research in African American Studies, Columbia University. Kristen Clarke works with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educations Fund, Inc., handling voting rights matters and legal problems resulting from the Hurricane Katrina Crisis.

Review :
"Seeking Higher Ground thoroughly examines every angle of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and offers smart, damning critiques of how individual and societal prejudice turned a natural disaster into a man-made catastrophe. After more than two years, this book reminds us of all the work still left to be done." - Donna Brazile, "This marvelous book is the most comprehensive and insightful examination of the most catastrophic event in recent American history." - Cornel West, Class of 1943 University Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University