New Orleans True Video

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New Orleans ~ Post-Katrina Populist Funk
SPECIAL SHOWING: Modern Museum of Art, NYC Documentary Fortnight, February 21, ‘07 at 8PM.

Third World Newsreel is proud to announce that our Katrina Chronicles Series has been invited to MoMA’s prestigious Documentary Fortnight this coming month of February 2007. The Katrina Chronicles Series features short documentaries about the city and people of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
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Katrina Chronicles Series

PEOPLE SAY:
>Disastrous Hurricanes, maritial law & curfews, housing crisis, toxic earth, closed schools and hospitals, abandoned elders, centuries of festering racism, a neo-police state… while the “New” New Orleans struggles to survive and exist outside of the the American illusion of democracy, the most dynamic grass roots efforts in the country claim the streets, deliver food, celebrate, build homes and tell the truth in this visual collage set to the song “People Say” by the legendary Nola band, the funky Meters.

This is no Red Cross special:

Fight For Your Rights & Please Support Self-Determaination and Equality for the Gulf South and all Peoples.

Related Links ::: Common Ground Collective, People’s Hurricane Relief Fund & Oversight Coalition, N.O. H.E.A.T., Resource Action Group, Mary Queen of Vietnam ChurchMississippi Muslim Association, NOAH Coalition, Hip Hop Caucus, People’s Institute for Survival & Beyond

“This insightful video montage embodies the full range of images, sights and emotions which followed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It also depicts the people’s hope, compassion and commitment to the city of New Orleans.
Mary Beth Black, 2005, 5 minutes” ~ Third World Newsreel

N.O. EAST ~ also by M.B.Black
Two months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their homes and communities, residents of New Orleans East are willing to rebuild their neighborhood with the support of city and federal agencies. But there is no water or electricity in New Orleans East and politicians promoting the rebuilding of the city forget to include this poor neighborhood in their grand plans. In this call for help, black and Vietnamese residents voice their concerns while they also try to return back home with the help of grassroots community organizations.
Mary Beth Black, 2005, 10 minutes

Also showing, more videos about post-Katrina New Orleans:

FINDING COMMON GROUND IN NEW ORLEANS
In this short documentary, activist and poet Walidah Imarisha travels to New Orleans and other neighboring towns shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. In her path she encounter grassroots organizations like Common Ground and Soul Patrol that were formed in response to the government’s failure to manage evacuation and relief efforts before, during and after the hurricane. She also finds Camp Amtrak, a makeshift jail and court room at an old bus station where inmates are sentenced to community service. Finally, she meets people in neighboring towns that are still waiting for FEMA to pays them a visit. Through interviews with residents, activists and city officials, Imarisha succinctly captures the pain, loss and hope of the people of New Orleans.
Walidah Imarisha, 2006, 23 minutes

I WON’T DROW IN THAT LEVEE AND YOU AIN’T GOING TO BREAK MY BACK
This short documentary began with an invitation to travel to New Orleans as part of a delegation to investigate what actually happened at the Orleans Parish Prison during and after Hurricane Katrina. What came up was not only a botched and deadly evacuation of the prison, but a broader climate of racial tension and brutality throughout the local and Federal response to the disaster, where the population was divided into survivors and looters along lines of race

Mr. Ollie Jackson, 85 year old New Orleans East Senior Citizen who stayed during hurricanes Katrina and Rita with no government aid for 5 months and counting.
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UPDATE: January 18, 2007
SCREENING at the Modern Museum of Art, NYC Documentary Fortnight February 2007 W/ other New Orleans shorts sponsored by Third World Newsreel

UPDATE: February 1, 2006

Mr. Ollie Jackson is living in the same circumstances in New Orleans East, without electricity and drinking water. His health is worsening and he needs heart medication and medical care. He does not have transportation, a telephone, mail delivery and he cannot read or write. He still needs assistance accessing his benefits and the relief due to him as well as finding safe housing in his community. To provide support for Mr. Ollie, please contact: holographicferriswheel@yahoo.com.

New Orleans East: October & November 2005

New Orleans East is a large part of New Orleans and totally flooded and devastated by Hurricane Katrina. This predominantly African-American and Southeast Asian community to this day remains in the shadows of house-high piles of trash and waste. Utities, including water and electricity, are intermittant - if at all, and residents openly ask for recognition and aid. Some community elders, who stayed since the hurricane, remain without governmental aid, including contact with Red Cross or FEMA. Neighbors and community members are the first responders, with relief support from grass roots organizations and the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, which drew thousands of Versailles community members from Houston and other evacuee areas to its re-opening in October.

This video documents some of these voices and the relief efforts of Resource Action Group

Related Links ::: Resource Action Group

Click Image to Download the VIDEO 31 MB 18 minutes

This piece, entitled “Si Se Puede!” or “Yes, We Can!”, beckons to the call of migrant workers to come together and unite as a community to fight for justice and self-determination in Post-Katrina New Orleans. The piece is put together from footage shot by New Orleans resident, community member and videographer Mary Beth Black, and chronicles some recent events and developments relating to immigrant worker rights along the Gulf Coast.

The government’s decision to open up rebuilding to private contractors has had serious implications for poor workers. In the wake of Katrina, unprecedented numbers of migrant workers of various races came to New Orleans and other areas of the Gulf Coast from all parts of the USA, Latin America and South America, hoping to find decent work, pay, and accommodation through the reconstruction effort, and have instead found themselves in shockingly exploitative situations. Ensnared between laws that benefit contractors and leave them with no rights, and the financial need that brought them to the Gulf Coast in the first place, many of these workers are forced to live and work in circumstances that are unhygienic and dangerous, and more often than not, are cheated of their fair wages.

This piece, which we hope to continue as a series in the future, addressing upcoming issues, includes footage from the historic May 1 Immigrant Labor Rights Rally in New Orleans, interviews with workers, and the Indigenous Labor Rally in Lee Circle, which saw indigenous peace runners unite in solidarity with the fight of migrant workers.

Related Links ::: National Immigration Law Center, New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition, Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance

Click Image to Download the VIDEO 8 mgs 13 minute segment

“Marchin’ to New Orleans” tells the story of American veterans who have been radicalized by what they have witnessed while working as tools of our administration, and have returned home to see their country with a fresh perspective. More than just victims of reckless foreign policy, these individuals have chosen to use their use their experiences to raise consciousness about a capitalist system that values economic interests over human life.

This is a segment from a piece that chronicles a six-day march along the Gulf Coast that began in Mobile Alabama and ended in a rally at New Orlean’s historic Congo Square Park. Along the way, veterans are joined by residents of the Gulf Coast who share stories of abandonment first by FEMA and then by the American media. Marchers are shocked and outraged to see that eight months after Katrina the repair of the Gulf Coast seems to have barely begun, while the general public has little knowledge of the continuing devastation.

Parallels and connections between the situation at home and abroad emerge as the march approaches New Orleans. Exploitation of immigrant labor recruited to rebuild the city emulates the presence of foreign contractors in Iraq. Many in Iraq and on the Gulf Coast continue the struggle to survive without the basic infrastructure of daily life—electricity and clean water, healthcare and education. Taxpayer’s dollars that are being used to tear down Iraq are concurrently absent in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast.

Related Links ::: Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, United for Peace and Justice Coalition

Bayou Sauvage Tour + City Hall Rally
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Stop the Illegal Dumping in New Orleans East!

We are one big inter-connected tidal pool of humanity floating on a gorgeous and endangered wetlands. This is a VIDEO tour of the Bayou Sauvage and Chef Mentuer Landfill Site for the new illegal dump for millions of tons of hurricane debris plus views of the May 10 rally against the landfill at City Hall.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the region is left with literally millions of tons of debris to collect and dispose of as an essential part of the recovery process. New Orleans Mayor Nagin, who is up for re-election on May 22, claimed “emergency powers” and circumvented public hearing processes and safety standards to designate and begin dumping debris in New Orleans East - not 20 yards from the Bayou Sauvage wetlands and a mile from a community of thousands of predominantly Vietnamese and African-American families.

Not only is New Orleans East a profound and unique multi-generational community that spans time and geography from New Orleans back to 3 villages in Vietnam, but it is also bordered by the nation’s largest urban wildlife refuge, the Bayou Sauvage, and home to many endangered species as well as alligators, turtles, egrets, nutria and other swamp critters.

Despite massive flooding and lack of government support, the Vietnamese community in New Orleans East has accomplished profound recovery and rebuilding on their own initiative, organized largely through the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, to account for the welfare of community members, gut and rebuild homes, and host many volunteers who have come to the region and need support for their work.

The Vietnamese community in New Orleans East is leading the fight against this landfill which Mayor Nagin approved by sideswiping law that demands community hearings before a landfill can be built. On May 10th, members of the Versaille Community and the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, together with the Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy civil rights organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and also representatives of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network gathered together at City Hall and demanded that Mayor Nagin hear their protest. A 3 day moratorium was put on the dumping (to be lifted on Monday) until, Mayor Nagin said, he could “prove… that it is safe”.

The landfill is designated to be 100 acres, 30 feet deep and another 80 feet high. See the video tour of the Bayou Sauvage and the Chef Menteur Landfill site with Father Dung Nguyen and feel for yourself the unique and interconnected landscape that is threatened by the city of New Orleans’s illegal dumping.

For more info about the New Orleans East community after Hurricane Katrina, scroll down to story and view video.
For more info about the Landfill, see the story posted by Citizens for a Strong New Orleans East:::>>>
Related Links ::: FACTS ABOUT THE LANDFILL, Mary Queen of Vietnam Church

keywords: New Orleans East, landfill, Hurricane Debris, Katrina, environmental racism, Vietnamese community, wetlands, Bayou Sauvage, Illegal Dumping, Toxic Waste

Download the AUDIO 12 mgs 31 minutes
Former New Orleans Cop mouths off against “The System”. Everyone right & left alike will probably find something said here to be extremely offensive. There is some “language” buts that’s not the disturbing part. There’s black & white and then there’s Anonymous Bob; a multifaceted shade of grey that speaks to reality instead of dogma.

Human & Voting Rights March: New Orleans, April 1 2006,
Click to Download VIDEO 27 MB 11′30 min.mov quicktime

On Saturday, April 1 2006, several thousand people marched across the Mississippi River Bridge from the Convention Center in New Orleans to Gretna, Louisiana to protest human rights abuses that occurred following hurricane Katrina and the upcoming mayoral elections on April 22.

When people tried to cross this bridge, the “Crescent City Connection”, while fleeing the city and the rising floodwaters immediately following hurricane Katrina last September, they were turned back at gunpoint by police from the city of Gretna.

Protestors marched on this symbolic bridge to also protest the upcoming elections for New Orleans mayor. With less than half the city returned, and most of the residents relocated to new addresses, displaced voters, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), Rainbow Push Coalition, and other national and local civil rights advocates called for the post-ponement of the elections until equal access to the candidates, information about the election, and actual voting places can be guaranteed to all residents. In particular, voting rights advocates pointed to satellite voting opportunities given in the United States by the government to Iraqi and Bosnian citizens that are being denied to tens of thousands of displaced residents of New Orleans. Many protestors compared the expense and burden on poor and predominantly African-American residents to travel back to New Orleans just to vote for mayor to the poll taxes and Jim Crow laws that historically prevented African-American peoples from representation in electoral politics in the Southern United States.

The NAACP has set up a hotline for New Orleans voters:
1-866-Our-Vote (1-866-687-8683).
Pass it on.

HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL:
This past weekend’s protest in New Orleans coincided with some of the largest protests in U.S. history. In other cities around the United States, hundreds of thousands of protestors also marched against anti-immigration legislation and immigrant worker policies. To look more at both these protests and larger movements in relationship to universal human rights and equal representation, see related links:
Democracy Now! Monday April 3 2006, New Orleans indymedia

More video for a Free New Orleans and Peace On Earth at::: www.N.O.Tv Collective.org

Click Image to Download the VIDEO 34 mgs 8.5 minutes
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On the 3rd Anniversary of the 2nd Iraq War, Iraq veterans clearly spell out the problems with words and song. Words by Camilo Mejia and Michael Blake; song by VOICE.

The Walikin’ to New Orleans March started Tuesday the 14th of March in Mobile, Alabama and concluded on Sunday the 19th; with an Anniversary Anti-War Rally in Congo Square, New Orleans.

Watch The Rest of the Week

Saturday’s Video, Friday’s Video, Thursday’s Video, Wednesday’s Video

Tuesday’s Video, Tuesday’s Camp Host, Monday’s Press Conference Video

Related Links ::: VOICE, Vietnam Vetrerans Against the War, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Camilo Mejia, More About the March, More Coverage of the March