Help build the Gulf Coast Self-Determination and Reconstruction Movement.
Everyone interested in justice and equity for the Survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, particularly the Black majority of New Orleans, should join PHRF and other Gulf Coast organizations at the following workshops at the first US Social Forum.
| Title/Date/Time/Venue | Description |
| They Left Us Here to Die: Hurricane Katrina, Ethnic Cleansing, Neo-Liberalism and Disaster Capitalism in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Thursday, June 28th | This presentation will expose the systematic program of ethnic cleansing taking place in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The Black majority of the regions, particularly in New Orleans, are being denied the unqualified human right to return to their homes by the US government on all levels. Rather than adhering to the human rights standards and international treaties that govern the process of relief, resettlement, and reconstruction for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), or its own laws and policies, such as the “Stafford Act” or the “USAID Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons Policy”, the US government has fundamentally chosen a neo-liberal, free-market solution to guide its policy of recovery, resettlement, and reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. |
| We Are Our Own Liberators: The International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the struggle for Self-Determination in the Gulf Coast Thursday, June 28th | This workshop will focus on the struggle of oppressed peoples in the Gulf Coast to rebuild their own communities, fight for the right of return, and confront racism and human rights violations of the United States government. It will focus specifically on the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that is seeking to charge the US government with numerous crimes against humanity, particularly against Black communities, committed before, during and after the Hurricanes. The Tribunal will be held in New Orleans August 29th – September 2nd, 2007. |
| Stop the High Rent: Housing as a Human Right Thursday, June 28th | This workshop will focus on one concrete aspect of the struggle for the right to return that is taking place in New Orleans currently. The workshop will present the work of the Tenants Rights Working Group of the Peoples Hurricane Relief fund and will explore the issue of rental price-gouging in New Orleans following the Great Flood. This workshop relates to the cross-cutting theme of Past and Present Struggles. |
| You Can’t Kill the Spirit”: Solidarity Organizing in the Movement to Rebuild New Orleans Thursday, June 28th 1:00 pm Westin Hotel | After the levees broke and Black New Orleans was left to die by the State, left and progressive activists around the country struggled to find meaningful ways to respond. As we near the 2nd anniversary of Katrina, many on the left continue to ask how they can participate in a responsible and strategic way to the reconstruction movement led by Black and working class communities and their organizations in New Orleans. “You Can’t Kill the Spirit” brings together leaders from organizations based in and outside New Orleans to share reflections and lessons on how social justice activists from around the country can support the struggle for New Orleans and build grassroots power. This panel will explore goals and strategies of New Orleans based groups who have utilized national resources and outside volunteers from progressive/left organizations. These organizations will also provide concrete suggestions for how people can directly support the leadership and organizing of working class, Black-led organizing in New Orleans. The panel will also explore the goals and strategies of organizations who have come to New Orleans to support the grassroots movement. These organizations will speak to the key lessons they have learned from organizing in solidarity with the local movement. One will speak directly to the challenges and opportunities of organizing out of town, primarily white volunteers using an anti-racist and multiracial alliance building strategy. And one will speak to the challenges and opportunities of organizing in communities of color. The panel’s orientation is based on the assumptions that we need to build grassroots political power in working class communities and communities of color, that women’s, transgender and gender variant leadership is central to building dynamic and powerful movements, and that there is a need to organize people who have race, class and gender privilege to participate in building movements led by oppressed communities for collective liberation. It is also rooted in the belief that we need a praxis-oriented practice of drawing lessons from our work to advance our vision and understanding of the world. |
| Say What? A Dramatic Reading & Discussion of US Government Lies to UN Human Rights Officials About Gulf Coast Reconstruction Thursday, June 28th 3:30 pm Westin Hotel | Against the backdrop of a video display of the inhumane treatment of Gulf Coast residents during and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, this session will begin with a spoken word piece that introduces the human rights abuses perpetrated by the US government in its efforts to privatize communities and public services in the Gulf region. Following the spoken word, there will be a dramatic reading that exposes to audience members the lies told by the US government in little known reports about human rights and the Gulf Coast reconstruction. The US government has submitted these reports to United Nations’ officials, who monitor the federal government’s compliance with treaties that protect the human rights to life, non-discrimination, and racial equality. The dramatic reading will present the outrageous statements made by the US government, which ignore the human rights protections for Gulf Coast residents struggling to return, rebuild, and recover. People from the Gulf Coast, whose human rights continue to be violated in the so-called "recovery effort," will present their responses to each statement by the US government. These responses will highlight the intersectionalities of struggles for justice (e.g., the right of return, racial justice, workers’ rights, immigrant and migrant rights, environmental justice, children’s rights and quality public education, anti-violence, voting rights, reform of the incarceration system, community self-determination, and economic justice). Following the dramatic reading and responses, there will be a facilitated dialogue with the audience that explores how social justice activists can hold the US government accountable for the prolonged displacement of African Americans, the ethnic cleansing of the Gulf region, and other human rights violations. |
| The Future of the Black Liberation Movement: Katrina and the Gulf Coast, the Black Belt South, and the Black Nation June 29, 2007 1:00pm Atlanta Ballroom G room at the Westin Hotel | The Future of the Black Liberation Movement: Katrina and the Gulf Coast, the Black Belt South, and the Black Nation A conversation initiated by the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, Black Workers for Justice, and the Labor/Community Strategy Center This conversation will address both the historical formation of the theory and practice of the Afro-American national question and new and additional questions to develop a more contemporary understanding of the present period. This discussion will include, but not limit itself to, • The massive dispersion of Black people from the Gulf Coast and South and the Right of Return • The “racist re-enslavement” complex of police, prisons, and the national security state and the Free the Prisoners movement, the Social Welfare State not the Police State It will situate the struggle for Black self-determination in an anti-imperialist and internationalist perspective. It will try to address the efforts to build a Reconstruction Movement and the tactics, demands to unite forces throughout the Gulf Coast and throughout the U.S. This workshop will situate itself in the actual practice of on-the-ground social movements that are the foundation of African American self-determination—including the struggle of Black women, workers, prisoners and “pre-prisoners” and oppressed nationality communities, and demands for environmental justice and Black political power. The format will be inclusive of other points of view and will encourage a constructive and participatory process. Sponsoring Organization: Labor/Community Strategy Center/ Centro de Estrategia Laboral y Communitario Participants: Saladin Muhammad, Black Workers for Justice Patrisse Cullors and Damon Azali, Labor/Community Strategy Center Kali Akuno, Peoples’ Hurricane Relief Fund and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement |
| The Second Survivors’ Assembly Saturday, June 30th 1:00 pm Westin Hotel | This session will serve as a means to raise support for and involvement in the Second Survivors Assembly. The Second Survivors Assembly is being held in conjunction with the 2nd Commemoration of Hurricane Katrina and the convening of the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The session will explore why he peoples of the Gulf Coast need a strong and unifying Black-led Reconstruction Movement and program. The session will explain what the Survivors Assembly is and will go into the crisis that will be addressed by the Survivors Assembly (the failure of the United States government to protect and repair the lives of the people and most impacted communities and vital social institutions affected by Katrina and Rita). In addressing this crisis, the Assembly serves as the venue where the Survivors directly exercise their voice and power to decide the platform and program of the Gulf Coast Self-Determination and Reconstruction movement. This session will serve to raise the hype. The main purpose of the Survivors Assembly is to create a collective strategic vision, platform, and program to guide the Gulf Coast Self-Determination and Reconstruction Movement. One of the most fundamental questions we believe the Assembly must address and answer is whose vision and program for reconstruction in the Gulf Coast will prevail? This connects to the USSF crosscutting theme of Building a Movement as we will engage participants in learning about the Assembly as an important step in building a strong Gulf Coast Reconstruction Movement. |
- Click here to download the PHRF workshop schedule
- Click here to download the Greater New Orleans organizations sessions schedule
The peoples of the Gulf Coast need the active solidarity of the progressive movement in the US to win restitution, reparations, and the right of return. Join us during these sessions and learn how you and your organization can get involved.
For more information on the U.S. Social Forum, go to the www.ussf2007.org
KEY MOVEMENT BUILDING MOMENTS
Social movements grow in power and influence because organizers and activists seize the moments that confront them. In the last few years, progressive organizers and activists have experienced critical opportunities to build a more vibrant and effective movement in the United States. We have enjoyed some successes; and we have suffered many setbacks. As organizers, activists, and movement builders we have not yet drawn the lessons from these experiences to develop plans for moving forward.
The U.S. Social Forum will shine the light on six key movement building moments to learn the lessons. These six struggles - Gulf Coast Reconstruction in the Post-Katrina Era; War, Militarism and the Prison Industrial Complex; Indigenous Voices: From the Heart of Mother Earth; Immigrant Rights; Liberating Gender and Sexuality: Integrating Gender and Sexual Justice Across Our Movements; and Workers’ Rights in the Global Economy - are not the only important issues facing the movement today. They are deeply interconnected and related to all the crises in our communities within today’s reality of globalization and repressive neoliberal policies - growing poverty; multiple oppressions rooted in class, race, nationality, gender, sexuality, ability, and age; environmental destruction; and increasing militarism. Through workshops, presentations, performances, and debates during the U.S. Social Forum we will explore all these critical issues and their interrelationships.
The U.S. Social Forum is highlighting these six struggles in plenary dialogues because they represent key movement building opportunities for organizers and activists in this country. These struggles and the lessons learned inform all of our work. They inspire us to develop a critical consciousness and a bold vision. These struggles, when connected strategically, form the basis of a powerful movement to challenge the legitimacy of U.S. empire, and to help build a cooperative world of peace, justice, equality, solidarity and self-determination.
Gulf Coast Reconstruction in the Post-Katrina Era
Thursday (June 28th)
6:00pm
The destruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita exposes the historic forces of genocide, slavery, and militarism, as well as widespread exploitation, white supremacy, and sexism. The total devastation demonstrates the environmental crisis facing the world; and highlights local, state and federal governments’ abandonment of low-income communities and communities of color, including immigrant communities, and their women, children, elders, and disabled. The ongoing struggle to win the right of return for all displaced people and the right of working people to return to their jobs, including in the public sector and especially in the public schools, points to growing struggles against gentrification and massive privatization - the right to housing, education, health care, to all public services, and the right of workers to collective bargaining in their workplaces. These struggles also point to the need for new strategic alliances among organizations in the African American, Indigenous, immigrant and other communities of color, and among working people, women, and queer communities to make our vision of Gulf Coast reconstruction a reality.
Speakers:
Viola Francois Washington, Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund
Sharon Harshaw, Coastal Women for Change
Nandi Marumo, Fyre Youth Squad
Mwalimu Johnson, Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana
Uyen Le, National Alliance of Vietnamese American Service Agencies
Daniel Castellanos, Alliance for Guest Workers for Dignity and the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice
Moderators:
Monique Harden, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights
Jerome Scott, Project South
Cultural Artists from New Orleans
Sonny Patterson
Kalamu ya Salam
