theGrio recently spoke with New Orleans native, former UN ambassador, Atlanta mayor, congressman and civil rights icon Andrew Young regarding the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. What started out as a request for a few quotes turned into a full-blown discussion about what’s changed about the region; what must be done to help; and why New Orleans is still one of the greatest places on earth.
What’s changed the most about New Orleans and the Gulf region since Hurricane Katrina?
Andrew Young: I think that the black middle class by and large gave up on New Orleans. What used to be the suburbs around New Orleans East and Pontchartrain Park, people can’t get adequate insurance, they can’t get adequate credit and it’s very hard for people in my age group, which would be the senior citizens, who have spent their whole lives there.
I moved from New Orleans to Atlanta when I was about 16 so I’ve been here in pretty much the same house. If something happened to that house I’d be ruined and that’s what happened to my generation. It’s very difficult when you’re past 65 to start rebuilding.
What still needs to be done for New Orleans post-Katrina to help the recovery many say has not completely started?
Recovery has hardly begun. The places that were not damaged very badly have [been] restored but nobody’s really done anything about the Gulf Canal that let the tidal wave come in and wash away the levees. The levees were repaired but they were repaired by and large with the same dirt, levees that were there since my childhood. There really needed to be a Mississippi Valley redevelopment project that should have started with the wetlands south of New Orleans and gone all the way up to Minnesota.
I think that’s the kind of massive public works project that actually I went to see President Bush about, because New Orleans has never been able to develop the natural gas and oil under Lake Pontchartrain and under Orleans Parish. Texas, California, Florida have a twelve-mile limit out in the Gulf. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama just have a three-mile limit out in the Gulf.
At the time of Katrina an executive order could have monetized the gas and oil under New Orleans and under Lake Pontchartrain and used it to finance a development authority that could have done the repairs and the renovations that are needed really all up the river. We’re seeing the floods all the way up in Iowa now, today. Minnesota had some terrible floods. St. Louis is always in danger. We really have a major need for the development of the Mississippi Valley in such a way that the cities all along the way would be safe.
[During] Katrina when I talked to some of my friends in the oil business and in the finance business they thought that it would not have been difficult to sell anywhere from fifty to seventy-five billion dollars worth of tax-exempt bonds using the guarantee of the oil and gas under New Orleans, not drilling it but just because it’s there monetizing it and using it as a basis for development. If you’ve ever been down to Panama you see the gates, the locks of the Panama Canal.
That’s what we need at the base of this Mississippi Gulf Canal so that when weather threatens you have gates that can close and hydraulic lifts to lift them as high as you needed to lift them. That’s expensive but it’s not as expensive as redoing the city every ten years. All of that would pay for itself.
With what has happened with the oil spill on top of Katrina, realistically, how long will it be for that region to truly recover?
I don’t know. I just finished a dozen raw oysters, in an oyster loaf that they said the oysters came from New Orleans, and they tasted pretty good to me. They taste pretty much the same. They were a little smaller. Usually toward the end of the summer they’re a little smaller. And the months for oysters are usually September on. I was specifically asked did these come from Louisiana and what part and have you had any and then I tasted them myself raw. So I mean there has been a miraculous something in the Gulf. Now what the deep water damage is and what happened to this oil sediment you know five to seven thousand feet down I don’t know, but I think that we can survive but we have to prepare.
We have to think seriously about global warming. We have to realize that this a delicate planet that we’re on, and there are other oil companies that are drilling in water just as deep if not deeper offshore. But BP had a particularly bad record just about everywhere they were and so I think you’ve got to look at the corporate influence in politics that makes it possible for a billion dollar company to cut corners. I mean they had sixty billion dollars in profits. There’s no need for them cutting corners on drilling at 5,000 feet. They could have started all over and saved money and done it right the first time. But that says you have to have a government that is not bought and paid for by the corporate community, and that has always been one of Louisiana’s problems.
With everything that’s happened down there what do you want people to know about your hometown and what is the best way for them to help the region?
I think the thing I want to keep is what I call the “gumbo” and it’s not just the food, it’s the music, it’s the culture, it’s the mixture of nationalities and cultures. It’s the flexibility and freedom of expression and that there’s just something that’s wild and free but not trashy and vulgar about New Orleans.
New Orleans has a classic kind of trashy way, I don’t know why but it’s part of the religion even. And I would just like to see people continue, I mean I’ve been to New Orleans twice this year and I’m going back once more in another week. And it’s not just to see friends it’s because of conventions which are the lifeblood of keeping New Orleans alive. And my wife’s sorority was there with about 15,000 women and that sure brought a lot of life to downtown and all the restaurants. I think locating a convention in New Orleans, locating a business in New Orleans and just visiting because it is a truly historic city.
My name is Andrew Jackson Young and I always figured I got to be named Andrew Jackson because in the 1800s Andrew Jackson went down there and gave the ex-slaves some land if they would be willing to defend New Orleans. At that time the plan was that Napoleon planned to take over New Orleans, move the French Canadians down to Mississippi from Canada and divide the United States in half and everything west of the Mississippi was supposed to be French. That didn’t happen and it didn’t happen because people of New Orleans of all races and classes pulled together. But it also didn’t happen because Napoleon got waylaid by Touissant L’ouverture in Haiti and so it’s two places I feel morally bound to. And when they experienced tragedy I just feel as though something has to be done.
America has a debt to Haiti and New Orleans has a debt to Haiti, and I think the world has a debt to New Orleans for showing that people from all over the earth can get together, live together in peace and prosperity and really create an enjoyable life.