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Hope Floods My Soul
by
May 2. 2007
In order to get King School on track
Dr Hicks and 95% of the teachers came back.
Si nshine : D ixon
With a team of just three to process them in
NENA hopes 8(XK) will come back again
Tracking neighbors by colored push pins
This trip has made my love for New Orleans Rise up like the
mighty waters and flood my soul with hope.
You see
We saw the headlines ...Amazed
Sat staring at the television for days
As Help me' 'Diabetic here’ signs waved
But higher powers seemed unfazed
And can you tell me WHY during the flood the ninth ward bridge was
RAISED?
Red-SOLD Yellow-ON HOLD
White - Trailing right and working through the night
And
Green - green like the grass is a hopeful sign
That it’s gonna be tough but w e're gonna be fine
The levee broke in three places
Bringing on these phases
Close to 16(X) died first
Thousands of others were dying of thirst
And though the lower ninth ward seems desolate and Hat
There are thousands of residents dying to get back
When the worst was over by all accounts
Still seemed like no one came to help out
We saw huge traffic lines but even cars didn't get far
And if you had just a bus pass, and tennis shoes
Well baby you really had the blues
In a dome
Away from home
Those waiting out the storm...were soon overcome
By lack of food and too much heat
Folks were running out of food to eat
Sunshine Dixon o f Portland and Gov. Ted Kulongoski join a
group o f Portland leaders who went to New Orleans on a
"Flight o f Friendship" goodwill mission
And the chants
The tears
The rants
The cheers
All seemed to fall on deaf ears
BAM up the stairs in full stride
Fleeing for life to the attic
With an ax and a pick
Cut holes through rooftops
Waving sheets for someone to stop
All the time
Hoping the water would stop its climb
One t-shirt read
Been let down
By Mr. Michael FEMA Brown
Then time and Rita passed by
This trip has made my love for New Orleans
Rise up like the mighty waters and flood my soul with hope
It's been over 500 sunrises since the devastation
Now w e’re focused on
Relief Recovery and Restoration
Relief Recovery and Restoration
The next stop and our final destination
You see when the levees broke
It released tears I didn’t know I had
I sat paralyzed by the pain I'd witnessed
To get there will take a village and then some
Combining our united wisdom
Creating solutions and working together
Some say it will all work out for the better
And speaking of WORK
There are some She-roes I met
There’s no way
1 will ever forget
I mean
Who could imagine HOPE
being dried up
by TOO MUCH WATER?
Honestly unbelief sat beneath the grief
And tides of anger rushed in like water
A little on the floor
Then coming through the back door
And
Starting with our Lower Ninth Ward
Powerhouse Sister
Named Trisha
Lesson from Virginia Tech:
H. M orial
Ryan Clark, the 22-
year-old residential ad­
viser from Martinez,Ga.,
and senior with a triple
major in psychology, bi­
ology and English, had
great expectations of his
future after graduating
from VirginiaTech. He had already
finished hiscoursework in Decem-
by M arc
ber but was intent on
crossing the graduation
stage in May for all his
fam ily and num erous
friends to see.
C la rk , o th e rw is e
known as Stack to his
frie n d s , had set his
sights high after gradu­
ation - with hopes of earning a
Ph. D in psychology with a focus
in neuroscience. Il is ironic given
that his dream s were cut short by
a mentally ill loner by the name of
Seung-Hui C’ho, whose deadly
shooting spree claim ed 32 lives,
including that o f C lark who
stumbled across the shooter in
his own efforts to assist one of
his residents - 19-year-old Emily
Hilscher - the massacre's first vic­
tim.
Clark lost his life rushing to the
aid of another student, which did
not come as a huge surprise to
And that’s the thing I have to say
They may have waded in the water
but they're coming back to stay
Another group who suffered great loss
was the Association from Holy Cross
Pam with Sustainable Restoration sees District 8
As a shining example to the rest of the state
And need I say more about programs galore,
diversity restored, in fact “insured” in Broadmoor.
Little did 1 know before coming this way
that I would meet so many She-roes in just one day
La Toya the president,
longtime Broadmoor resident
her passion was evident
I can’t leave out the magnificent men
Pastor Bruce, Pastor Gilbert,
Charles, Darryl and Hal
Let’s get back to the ladies now
Deborah first lady,
al I the members of H. I. V.
Linda at Steamboat,
Mignon I adore
and the whole wonderful team of MercyCorps.
This trip made my love for New Orleans
rise up like the mighty waters and flood my soul with hope.
I ‘m just one voice from our one hundred and ten
who believes New Orleans will thrive again.
Gun deaths too common for many of our youth
those who knew him. A member of
Virginia Tech's Marching Virgin­
ians band for five years, he spent
his summers as a counselor at a
camp for disabled kids.
In some ways, Ryan Clark, a
young black man who appeared to
be defying the less-than-spectacu-
lar odds faced by a large percent­
age and on the fast track to pros­
perity and prominence, died much
the way young black men living in
the inner cities - by gunshot
wound.
M A R K E T
N O W D E L IV E R IN G
Y o u r fa v o r ite n e ig h b o r h o o d g r o c e r y s to r e n o w d e liv e r s
g r o c e r ie s r ig h t to y o u r h o m e o r o ffic e .
à
As the fallout from the Virginia
Tech tragedy begins to clear, we
must remember that the same kind
o f w anton v io le n c e that put
Blacksburg, Virginiaon the world's
radar screen happens everyday -
albeit on a smal ler scale in terms of
victim count -- in the streets of our
nation's urban areas.
A ccording to the National U r­
ban League's The State o f Black
America 2(X)7, black men are nine
times more likely to be murdered
by firearm s than w hite men.
Those betw een the ages o f 15 to
24 years old are nearly six times
more likely to die by gunshot
wound - w hether accidentally or
purposefully - than their white
counterparts.
The bottom line is that black
men are sti II making up a dispropor­
tionate percentage of murder vic­
tims in America- regardlessof where
they live and the extent of gun
control employed.
But, what makes Clark's case
rare for a black man is that he died
at the hands of a man who was not
of his own race.
According to the Bureau of
Justice's 1976 to 2(X)4 assessment,
an average 94 percent of black
murders were committed by blacks.
For whites, 86 percent of white
murders came at the hands of other
whites.
In The State of Black America
2007, we concluded that blacks held
two-thirds the status of whites in
the area of social justice, which
consists of two categories - equal­
ity before the law (which makes up
80 percent- of the social justice in­
dex) and victimization and mental
anguish (which makes up 20 per­
cent).
Some of the responsibility for
our victimization ultimately comes
back to the African-American com­
munity.
We cannot fully blame social,
econom ic and political dispari­
ties within our country for the
violence we inflict upon our­
selves. We must address the is­
sue o f our young men dying way
too young from the inside as well
as from the outside.
Whether they live on a college
cam pus or in the inner cities,
whether they are murdered by a
drug dealer of their own race or a
m adman o f another race, our
community's future leaders don't
deserve to die so senselessly so
early in life.
Marc H. Morial is president and
chief executive officer o f the Na­
tional Urban League.
ffl!r JInrtlanh (Observer Established 1970
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