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9 Ways Race Is Still Playing a Dominant Role in the Aftermath Of Hurricane Katrina Victims 10 Years Later

Posted byBy A Moore | Published on: CommentsComments (2)

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New Orleans Lost A Significant Portion Of It’s Black Population

New Orleans is still majority Black but it’s much whiter than before. According to a government report on the 1.5 million evacuees of the Gulf Coast, African-American residents were less likely to return to their homes than whites—54 percent of African-American evacuees returned compared to 82 percent of white evacuees. The Black population has fallen from roughly 67 percent before the storm to about 59 percent today.

 

Mayor Mitch Landrieu

Mayor Mitch Landrieu

Storm Forced Blacks Out and Whites Seized Political Power

A recent New York Times article reported the city had a population of 455,000 before the storm, two-thirds of whom were Black. By 2010, there were 118,000 fewer Blacks. During that year, the city elected its first white mayor in 32 years, and a 5-2 white supermajority controlled the city council, which had been majority Black before the storm. Orleans Parish elected a white district attorney and chief of police. Additionally, white-majority boards ran most of the city’s schools and the housing authority.

‘‘The perception among most African-Americans is that they are living politically as a defeated group in their own city,’’ said Lance Hill, executive director of Tulane University’s Southern Institute for Education and Research, in 2012.

Today, the New Orleans City Council is again majority Black and there’s a Black police chief.

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