If you’re wringing your hands about what you can do for New Orleans and Louisiana, I saw this on a listserve:

In 1964, 800 college students from around the country came to Mississippi to register African American voters who were being denied this constitutional right.

In that spirit of democracy, we call upon students to travel to the Gulf Coast to participate this January in “Louisiana Winter.”

The goals of Louisiana Winter are:

  • to turn the nation’s attention to the Gulf Coast;
  • to have students witness first hand the social suffering that is occurring;
  • and to promote the immediate passage of Federal legislation to implement the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project.

So what is the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project?  

So far, only a proposal to Congress.

It’s not yet a bill.  

Here is the list of its official supporters:

  • James Crowell, President
    NAACP, Biloxi Branch

  • LeeAnn Gunn-Rasmussen
    Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College

  • Rev. Michael-Ray Mathews,
    Grace Baptist Church, San Jose, CA

  • David Monsoon, Hip Hop Congress,
    San Jose, CA Chapter

  • Dr. Scott Myers-Lipton
    San José State University

  • Bill Quigley, Professor,
    School of Law
    Loyola University, New Orleans

  • Dr. Marty Rowland, P.E.,
    professional civil/environmental engineer,
    urban planner, New Orleans

  • Kai H Stinchcombe, Executive Director,
    The Roosevelt Institution, Stanford University
    http://www.rooseveltinstitution.org/

  • Tracie L. Washington, Esq., Director
    NAACP Gulf Coast Advocacy Center

  • Morgan Williams
    Co-founder, Student Hurricane Network,
    Tulane Law, Class of 2007
    http://www.studenthurricanenetwork.org

These representatives support its passage.  (Unfortunately, William “Cold Cash” Jefferson is one of them; hold your noses):

Contact your local congresscritters whether they know about this proposal, and whether they would support its passage as a bill.  Lean on them.

So far, participants from 25 colleges and universities have stepped up.

It may be too late for students to participate.  However, monetary and last minute support is also welcomed from ordinary citizens, particularly those who are willing to provide living arrangements and meeting places for the students.

You could say that this is a trial-run for the much larger implementation of the bill. Doing something NOW while awaiting passage one thing. Collecting data on those who would still need assistance and the difficulties involved (like lifting whole houses off the ground, above the flood level) even after the first visit (there are bound to be more), and what the volunteers still cannot do without Federal help is yet another.

Responding to the Call, Students:

If passed by Congress, the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project would hire 100,000 Gulf Coast residents to rebuild New Orleans and the surrounding region. The residents, who will be given subsidized tickets back to their neighborhoods, will set up temporary housing for themselves, and then rebuild and repair houses, schools, levees, parks, and other civic buildings. [For further information,] see http://www.SolvingPoverty.com.  

If you are a student, and want to participate in The Louisiana Winter, plan on being in the Gulf Coast region from January 14-20, 2007.  Teams of 20-40 students will spend Monday through Friday in a different town or parish throughout the Gulf Coast.  Each student team will arrive in a town or parish between 7 and 9 am; then, from 9 am-10:30 am, the local residents will tell their stories of the social suffering that has occurred and still is occurring.  The students will then go from door to door and store to store between 10:30 am and 5 pm, handing out flyers and educating citizens about the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project, and the need to pass immediate Congressional legislation to implement it.    

Each night, there will be a town hall meeting from 7-9 p.m.  All of the citizens that the students have met with throughout the day will be invited in order to have a more in-depth conversation about the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project, and to see what actions we can take together to implement it in Congress.  In each town forum, the residents will be invited to attend a mass rally on Saturday, January 20th in either New Orleans or Baton Rouge.

To register your participation, please go to http://www.SolvingPoverty.com, and fill out the on-line student registration form.  After you complete the form, we will contact you with information about your student team and where you will need to be at 3 pm, on Sunday, January 14.  If you have any questions, contact Seychelle Martinez at SeychelleM@hotmail.com. (Ms. Martinez is in San Jose, California; a contact person may be closer to you in your area.)  

Responding to the Call, Gulf Coast Wards, Towns, and Parishes:

If you are a community group or a citizen in the Gulf Coast, and would like to invite a student team of 20-40 students to your ward, town, or parish, please  
go to http://www.SolvingPoverty.com and fill out the on-line community registration form.  Here are a list of things we need for each parish or town that is interested in hosting a student team: (a) a place for the students to sleep for 1 night, (b) breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 1 day, (c) a community center that can host the morning discussion and the evening town meeting, (d) 4 or 5 community members to talk to the students in the morning, (e) assistance on where the students should go door to door and store to store, and (f) help with transportation to the next town.  If you have any questions, contact Dr. Scott Myers-Lipton at smlipton@sjsu.edu.

Responding to the Call, American Citizens:

If you are an American citizen and you want to support The Louisiana Winter, you can do two things: first, you can come to the rally on January 20, or hold a similar
rally in your community, and second, you can make a financial contribution at http://www.SolvingPoverty.com to support the logistical costs.

I’m sure that there are many proposals and bills in the works for New Orleans and Louisiana and other areas of the Gulf Coast in Congress.  No doubt, many have been shot down in favor of some rather dubious programs (like, for example, the Road Home Program.  Like many, I believe that only a large scale, Federally-funded, public works project in the spirit of the Roosevelt-era WPA is going to save New Orleans, not just a host of occasional volunteers.  It would be something that would include the rebuilding of the levees and pumps up to modern standards and in cognizance of global warming and reclaiming the wetlands.

Having such a program would also revitalize the city and its diverse population, which is what my grandparents witnessed in the 1930s and 1940s, and to their dying day, thanked the old trickster FDR for making things happen. It could lay the groundwork for future revitalization projects in other American cities.  A revitalization that is not a ripoff of its citizens.

Only then would New Orleans be saved.  But will it be in time?

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