To recognize the 20-year mark of Hurricane Katrina, Damon T. Hewitt, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, issued the following statement:
“It has been 20 years since this catastrophic hurricane forever changed New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast in Mississippi and Alabama. For many frontline communities, recovery has proved to be painfully elusive. The deaths of loved ones, loss of property, and continued health and economic challenges still weigh heavily.
The tragedy is even more devastating given the knowledge that the majority of the deaths and many of the other losses could have been avoided. That’s because what happened during and after Hurricane Katrina was as much a man-made disaster as it was a natural disaster. And in many ways, the man-made part of the disaster had been in the making for a long time.
As a New Orleans native, I know firsthand that the destruction extended far beyond the initial storm itself, and that some of the most striking examples of racial discrimination, inequity, and disinvestment in Black people and communities in the decades that followed the storm mirrored the same forces, decisions, and actions that harmed us for generations before the storm.
“So, as we mark this tragedy as a point in time, we must also reflect on how we got to that point in the first place. And we must also have clarity about the ongoing disasters haunting our communities today, as well as the next disasters around the corner.
Today, many New Orleanians and Gulf Coast residents are asking themselves some difficult questions: If a natural disaster happened again today, what kind of man-made disaster would they have to endure? Would their city, state, and nation be better prepared to take care of their own? Who would be left behind in the storm? Who would be left out of the recovery?
The likely answers to these questions do not offer much comfort. It is not clear that government actors have learned from their mistakes. At the federal level, the Trump Administration has not only directly gutted critical infrastructure like NOAA and FEMA, but it also continues to intentionally strip Black people and institutions of resources and funding. In Louisiana, the Lawyers’ Committee and others continue to fight for voting rights and fair representation; yet, the state is at war with its own people, wantonly violating Black voters’ rights by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to declare a key component of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Other states in the Gulf South, like Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama, have engaged in similar tactics. Compounded with other continued attacks on equity, opportunity, access to health care, environmental protection, and bodily autonomy, these are tactics meant to signal to us how little regard certain leaders have for Black communities–both in the face of tragedy, and also on an everyday basis. These actions are meant to tell us that our voices, our votes, and our vitality as Black people and as human beings do not matter.
But we mattered then, and we matter today. The resilience of Black communities and allies in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast has shown what is possible, and makes it even more important that we work together and fight alongside each other now to hold today’s leaders accountable while building more equitable paradigms for the future.
“I am deeply proud of the role the Lawyers’ Committee played in post-Katrina relief efforts, fighting for justice in natural and built environments with the people of New Orleans and Mississippi through frontline legal assistance for survivors. In the decades since, we have continued to advocate on their behalf, both inside and outside the courts. We will continue to stand in the breach, and in the eye of the proverbial storm, until justice, equity, and democracy are felt in our lived experience and not just as words on paper.”
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