Wednesday March 14th (and Beyond)

"I've always been a leader in the community," Ms. Audrey Browder of Central City Partnerships said, "this time I decided to follow." Ms. Browder met with us at 9am Wednesday morning to discuss the work we would be doing during the day. We began our day with her Katrina story. She followed that day in Mississippi as she turned left out of the hotel where she and a church friend has spent the evening. Katrina had passed right through the town where they had found lodging after driving out of New Orleans. She followed a line of cars to a Red Cross Shelter in Monroe where she stayed for two months and worked until December 2005.

I have visions of that day--what it meant to drive without knowing where one was going, having no clue whether family and friends were alive or dead, whether a house was standing or collapsed or full of 10 feet (or more) of water. Since we've been here, folks have talked about exile, about diaspora, about end times. Nehemiah 2:20 has become a rallying point…"Let Us Arise and Rebuild." Rev. Tyrone in Plaquemines has adopted the verse as his motto, but I find myself thinking it all over the place. I am amazed at how folks are trying--how folks are living, returning, rebuilding and trying to make HOME again. And folks all over the city have told me, "I know it will never be as it was, but I love this city. No where else I'd rather be."

We walked through Central City for hours Wednesday gathering signatures for a petition asking Home Depot to enter into a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with the community as they plan to build. The Central City coalition hopes to propose the CBA model as a way to rebuild this city. We attended the New Orleans city council meeting on Thursday where they presented their work. I have to admit that I see no plan in the council, and not enough attention to the work of community organizations racking their brains, spending all their collective energy and hours and hours of person-power attempting to imagine how to arise, how to rebuild, and how to bring EVERYONE (not just the rich) home.

We gathered over 200 signatures, and we talked to folks for hours who didn't even sign the petition. It felt just as important to hear the stories, to bear witness to tragedy, survival, and to the deep faith that keeps folks coming back to this city in ruins. It is going to take more than faith, though, to rebuild in an honorable way. There is crime in New Orleans right now--only a small bit of it is happening with guns in the streets. Most of it is happening in government, contracting, sub-contracting, rent-hikes, state and federal squandering of monies…Rebuilding is one thing. Justice is another.