"We Are Americans: The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina & the Politics of Language"

Monday, November 10, 2008, 7:00 pm, Fowler Hall, Stewart Center, Purdue University

Dr. Charles P. Henry, Ph.D.

The call for economic justice for Africans and their descendants has long been echoed in the voices of activists, from the period immediately following the enslavement to the present day call for racial reparations. In the epilogue of Long Overdue, Charles P. Henry connects three simple words—”we are Americans” - to the need for a public discourse on reparations.

Several copies of Long Overdue are available at the BCC Library Circulation Desk

About the Author

In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed Henry to the National Council for the Humanities for a six-year term. He is the former president of the National Council for Black Studies and former board chair of Amnesty International USA. Henry authored and edited seven books and more than 80 articles and reviews on black politics, public policy and human rights. His other books include "Ralph Bunche: Model Negro or American Other" (1998) and "Foreign Policy and the Black (Inter)national Interest" (2000). He was the Distinguished Fulbright Chair in American History and Politics at the University of Bologna, Italy, in 2003 and taught at the University of Tours in France as a Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair in 2006. more

Other resources available in the BCC Library on Katrina are:

The Black Scholar. 2006.

Introduction to The Black Scholar special issue on Hurricane Katrina: high tide of a new racial formation -- The wretched of the Gulf: racism, technological dramas, and Black politics of techonology -- Post-Katrina housing: problems, policies, and prospects for African-Americans in New Orleans -- "Bush doesn't care about Black people" : race, class, and attributions of responsibility in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- Natural versus social phenomena: Cuba and the lessons of Katrina -- Katrina 101: a Black Studies curriculum challenge.

Childs, John Brown. 2005. Hurricane Katrina : response and responsibilities. Santa Cruz, Calif.: New Pacific Press.

The New battle for New Orleans -- Saving America's soul kitchen : how to bring this country together? : listen to the message of New Orleans -- Letter to Mr. Howard Blue -- Making sense of tragedy -- Will the circle be unbroken? : reflections on place, identity, and New Orleans culture in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- Displacement, gentrification, and the politics of exclusion -- The Poliatrics of Nueva Orleans -- Loss of heritage, discovery of injustice : elders and premature babies -- New Orleans is all of us -- Katrina and social justice -- Cancer Alley and anti-immigrant reaction in the eye of the storm -- Let the people run it! -- New Orleans and the Gulf Region require an "Ethical Reconstruction Commission" -- We have lost our citizenship again : Katrina's aftermath: the new Dred Scott -- Katrina poses the question : what are the duties of governments to their people -- The Tragedy of Katrina : will there be a presidential apology? -- Katrina : giving eyesight to the blind -- Katrina : where the natural and the social meet -- Language matters : Hurricane Katrina and media responsibility -- Katrina's aftermath -- Katrina and the Dutch flood disaster of 1953 -- The Advantages of "higher ground" -- Empower the poor or the fire next time -- Hurricane Katrina : God and social morality -- Thinking for ourselves : fundamental questions -- 'Ike kupaianaha : now that it has been witnessed -- The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina : coming to grips with the US failure -- Hurricane Katrina : recipe for more disaster or hopeful reconstruction? -- Katrina, New Orleans, and intentional neglect -- In our blood, in our bones -- For collective individualism : Katrina's lessons

363.34922 H942 2005

Dyson, Michael Eric. 2006. Come Hell or high water : Hurricane Katrina and the color of disaster. New York: Basic Civitas.

363.3480976 D995c 2006

Lee, Spike. 2006. When the levees broke: a requiem in four acts. New York, N.Y.: Home Box Office : HBO Video. videorecording. 3 videodiscs (ca. 256 min.) : sd., col. ; 4 3/4 in.

Four acts document distinct perspectives on the pivotal events that preceeded and followed Katrina's passage through New Orleans, a catastrophe during which the divide between race and class lines has never been more pronounced.HBO Documentary Films and 40 Acres and A Mule Filmworks present a Spike Lee Film ; producers, Sam Pollard and Spike Lee ; director, Spike Lee.Title from container.Special features: Audio commentaries by Spike Lee; Next movement, Act 5; Water is rising.Interviews: Shelton 'Shakespeare' Alexander, Harry Belafonte, Terence Blanchard, Wilhelmina Blanchard, Kathleen Blanco, Douglas Brinkley.

BCC DVD V.2 7, 8 & 9

V.P. Franklin, editor. "Symposium on Hurricane Katrina and African American students." The Journal of African American History.

Introduction: Hurricane Katrina and African American students -- Hurricane Katrina through the eyes of African American college students: the making of a documentary -- A Katrina recovery initiative: Dillard University student projects, January-July 2006 -- Public schooling in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans: Are charter schools the solutions or part of the problem?

Troutt, David Dante, editor. 2007. After the storm : Black intellectuals explore the meaning of Hurricane Katrina. New York: New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton & Co.
edited by David Dante Troutt.ill. ; 20 cm.Part one: Race, poverty, and place. Many thousands gone, again -- Katrina : the American dilemma redux -- Part two: Class, politics, and the politics of race. The persistence of race politics and the restraint of recovery in Katrina's wake -- The real divide -- Part three: Disasters and diaspora. Historicizing Katrina -- Great migrations? -- Part four: Perceiving the image, framing identity, and critiquing "crime". Loot or find : fact or frame? -- While visions of deviance danced in their heads -- Part five: Rights and shared humanities. From wrongs to rights : Hurricane Katrina from a global perspective -- The station.

305.896073076 Af89 2007