2005: Hurricane Katrina
Big Idea
Hurricane Katrina severely impacted the Black community, causing significant suffering compared with New Orleans White populations. The slow federal response emphasized to many African Americans their status as second-class citizens compared with White citizens.
What’s important to know?
A “Geography of Risk”: Due to redlining and other segregation, Black families lived in the areas of New Orleans most prone to flooding and thus suffered the greatest losses during Hurricane Katrina.
Disparities in Experience & Reaction: African Americans were not surprised by the slow response to New Orleans' mostly Black areas post-hurricane. Many expressed frustration and believed the government would have acted faster if more White people had been impacted.
1: A “Geography of Risk”
In August 2005, one of the costliest tropical cyclones in American history hit Louisiana and Mississippi. It killed 1,395 people and created $75 billion in damages (White et al, 2007, p.524). It brought the attention of the nation to an area still struggling under the “afterlife of slavery” and vividly demonstrated how structural racism continued to leave African Americans in unequal positions in American society.
As with so many cities across the United States, New Orleans had also been impacted by redlining, blockbusting, and segregation. As a result, Black families lived in the parts of town most prone to flooding. Reilly Morse (2008), in a report highlighting the racial disparities of Katrina, noted that even before the storm “Mississippi and Louisiana ranked first and second in state poverty rates and had the second and fifth lowest state median household incomes, respectively” (p. 7). After the storm, arguments immediately surfaced as to which demographic was hit hardest and whether a focus on the suffering of Black people was, in the words of one reporter, “driven by nothing more than “racial paranoia” (Sharkey, 2007, p. 483).
Sociologist Patrick Sharkey disagreed. Through his research of Katrina, he concluded that:
Katrina's impact was felt most acutely by elderly individuals in New Orleans and by the city's African American population. Validating the impression that the storm hit New Orleans's Black communities hardest, I find that African Americans were disproportionately likely to die in Katrina and are also disproportionately likely to remain missing. Furthermore, the neighborhoods with the highest numbers of deceased are overwhelmingly Black. These findings reflect what Briggs (2006) refers to as a "geography of risk," where the legacy of racial and economic segregation has left specific segments of urban communities isolated from institutional resources, economic opportunity, and political influence and particularly vulnerable to a disaster such as Katrina (p. 484).
The Black residents of New Orleans had, as a result of historic redlining, been forced into parts of the city that were less desirable due to flooding. These sections of the city, usually poorer than White sections, were then subsequently more prone to crime and less supported and kept up through city repairs and services. The conclusion that Sharkey draws is not only supported by data but also logically makes sense. If you do not invest in an areas infrastructure, when that area is hit by a natural disaster, it will be harder for that area to survive than if the infrastructure is strong.
Sharkey concluded that through studies such as this “we shed light on the legacy of racial and economic segregation that has structured residential New Orleans, along with so many other urban centers in America” (p. 500).
Comparisons of Damaged New Orleans Neighborhoods.
Image Source: Reilly Morse, “Environmental Justice through the Eye of Hurricane Katrina,” p. 8.
Students
Want to learn more? Watch the video below on Hurricane Katrina and the Black communities in New Orleans.
Video from Crash Course Black American History.
2: Disparities in Experience & Reaction
African Americans watching the unfolding events of Hurricane Katrina across the nation noted the slow response of FEMA and President George W. Bush to the suffering on the ground. Reverend Al Sharpton summarized the feelings of many when he said, “I feel that, if it was in another area, with another economic strata and racial makeup, that President Bush would have run out of Crawford a lot quicker and FEMA would have found its way in a lot sooner” (White et al, 2007, p. 523).
In an analysis conducted after the Hurricane based on how Black versus White people felt about the event, the findings were telling. “[A]lthough 71% of Blacks responded that they felt angered by what happened in areas affected by the hurricane, only 46% of Whites reported feelings of anger” (p. 529). This anger did not come from nowhere or was not merely about this single incident. The anger arose because the African American community continued to witness disparities between how the federal, state, and local government responded to Black issues as opposed to White. Four hundred years of anti-Black systems, structures, and practices were highlighted in both the devastating consequences for the Black community and the response of the White leaders to this devastation. As scholars Ismail White, Tasha Philpot, Kristin Wylie, and Ernest McGown noted about the events and their statistical findings, “By showing that Blacks as a group felt abandoned by their government during one of the most devastating natural disasters this country has experienced, we help illuminate why there persists a racial divide in lived experiences of Black and White Americans. The distinct realities of Black and White Americans are perpetuated by the myth of a colorblind society and threaten the very foundation of America's allegedly representative democracy. Until racial divisions in condition and opinion can be bridged, the state of American democracy will be incomplete, lacking equal representation for all” (p. 534).
“By showing that Blacks as a group felt abandoned by their government during one of the most devastating natural disasters this country has experienced, we help illuminate why there persists a racial divide in lived experiences of Black and White Americans. ”
Your Turn
How did the reaction of the federal government to Hurricane Katrina actually fulfill the warning of the Kerner Commission that the United States was heading toward two societies-”one black, and one white—separate and unequal”?
-
Lowe, S. R., Lustig, K., & Marrow, H. B. (2011). African American Women's Reports of Racism during Hurricane Katrina: Variation by Interviewer Race. The New School psychology bulletin, 8(2), 46–57.
”Remembering Katrina: Wide Racial Divide Over Government’s Response.” Pew Research Center.
Bouie, J. (2015). Where Black Lives Matter Began. Slate.
-
PBS lesson materials on Hurricane Katrina.
Louisiana State Museum exhibit on Katrina.
-
Mannino, F. (2005). Katrina Evacuees Settle In St. Louis. Webster-Kirkwood Times.
Fowler, N. (2015). “STL composer recalls Katrina and the day the music almost died.” St. Louis Public Radio.
-
Cha-Jua, S. K. (2006). Introduction to The Black Scholar Special Issue on Hurricane Katrina: High Tide of a New Racial Formation. The Black Scholar, 36(4), 2–6. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41069217
Dyson, M. E. (2006). Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. Civitas Books.
Hobson, J. (2017). Zora Neale Hurston, Diaspora, and the Memory of Hurricanes. Black Perspectives.
Troutt, D. D. (2006). After the Storm: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Hurricane Katrina. The New Press.
-
Sharkey, P. (2007). Survival and Death in New Orleans: An Empirical Look at the Human Impact of Katrina. Journal of Black Studies, 37(4), 482–501. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40034319
Morse, R. (2008). Environmental Justice through the Eye of Hurricane Katrina. Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
White, I. K., Philpot, T. S., Wylie, K., & McGowen, E. (2007). Feeling the Pain of My People: Hurricane Katrina, Racial Inequality, and the Psyche of Black America. Journal of Black Studies, 37(4), 523–538. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40034321