Remember Katrina – Drive Out the Bush Regime!
(All photos by Stanley Rogouski)
To mark the one-year anniversary of when Katrina hit New
Orleans and the levees broke, unveiling some very ugly truths about the Bush
Regime, jazz musicians and others gathered for a New Orleans-style funeral
procession through Harlem.
Dressed in black and white, some with black armbands, others
holding make-shift coffins, we marched solemnly behind a banner that read,
“Remember Katrina: Drive Out the Bush Regime”.
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, and the sidewalks were
teeming with shoppers-turned-curious onlookers. They were first taken hold by
the sound of trumpets and saxophones coming down the thoroughfare, and you
could see people way down the street, craning their necks to see what was
coming, and then the surprise when they saw what it was for.
It’s not often that people are able to force a lane of 125th street
to close, least of all for something like this.
Many smiled or clapped or raised their fists in support, but
it was a challenge to get people to make a break from the daily routine and join
us. Several did, though, including one woman, a survivor from Katrina who had
been driving her car going passed us. She called out her window to see if we
were also displaced from New Orleans,
and when she learned we were all from the NYC area, she began to cry – she
didn’t think anyone else remembered or cared still about what had been done to
them by the Bush administration. She then parked car to join us.
Reporters from the local CBS station, and Univision, a New
York Times photographer, and a reporter from Hoy were present.
Matt Lavelle, the trumpeter who organized and led the
musicians, said:
“I feel today was significant because it sent a message
that there is a group of people, no matter how small or large, who know and
won’t accept what went down in New Orleans and the way the government handled
that. And people can see that those who care isn’t limited to Black people.”
He views what happened in New Orleans as “straight-up
extermination” and that the government’s true colors were exposed to the
world.
“They talk about how they’re promoting freedom in the Middle East but then said they couldn’t handle this
disaster – people aren’t buying it.”
