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Water in Sacred Places: Rebuilding New Orleans Black Churches as Sites of Community Empowerment
Donald E. DeVore
| In the city that had transformed "watching hurricanes" into a cultural art form, by Friday night, August 26, 2005, most New Orleanians had placed the eleventh named storm of the hurricane season on their personal watch list. Over the next forty-eight hours, approximately 350,000 residents evacuated the city. Most of them believed they would return within two or three days, just as they had done after recent storms threatened the city but then veered either to the east or west. The evacuees and the residents who remained in the city watched with some relief as Hurricane Katrina made landfall east of New Orleans, sparing the city the full force of its 140 mph winds. The first news reports were encouraging, but the optimistic assessments that the city had suffered only moderate damage were short-lived. The nation and the world watched with concern, disbelief, and horror as the tragedy in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast unfolded. For many residents, that marked the beginning of a long and still-evolving process to return to the city and rebuild their lives.1 |
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Unfortunately for the more than 250,000 residents that have not been able to return to the city to live, the recovery and rebuilding effort has been slow and, in some areas of the city, nonexistent. A household population survey completed in September 2006 showed New Orleans with a population of 187,525 as compared to 454,863 in July 2005. Many displaced residents have been frustrated in their efforts to return by several factors, including disputes with insurance companies, inadequate employment opportunities, high housing costs, housing shortages, concerns about flood protection, escalating insurance rates, and reduced city services. Another major obstacle has been the commitment to "a market-driven approach to the recovery effort" championed by, among others, New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin. Many individuals believe that a market-driven plan is untenable given the scale of the problem and the many disparate groups involved, each with differing needs and interests. Critics of the market-driven approach favor a comprehensive recovery planning process that is inclusive and involves active and effective leadership from the mayor and other city leaders. Efforts are underway to develop a unified New Orleans neighborhood plan, which may serve as the catalyst for an accelerated recovery process beginning in 2007.2 |
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Nonetheless, neither the absence of a comprehensive plan nor the inadequacies of a market-driven approach has prevented individuals from pursuing their own "road home" plan. Their efforts have been enhanced by the involvement of churches in the recovery effort. An August 2006 editorial in the New Orleans Times-Picayune pointed out what many in the city had observed or experienced since Katrina: "Faith-based organizations and churches have been a godsend for the metro area ... showing an ability to organize, mobilize and get things done that has frequently eclipsed the public sector." New Orleans African American churches have been actively involved in that effort.3 This article examines the work of several of the city's African American churches and suggests that it is emblematic of the role the black church is assuming in the city's recovery, a role that fits within a longstanding tradition of African American churches as centers of the social, political, economic, and religious life of their members and communities.4 |
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