Posted on 07/06/2007 11:13:42 AM PDT by BBell
Making a rare public appearance in the hometown he led as mayor for eight years, National Urban League President Marc Morial employed multiple civil rights-era references Thursday to criticize the laggard pace of recovery in post-Katrina New Orleans, which he depicted as a national embarrassment and "this generation's Birmingham."
In a short but rousing address to a mostly black audience of more than 300 attending the opening day of the 2007 Essence Music Festival, Morial called on Congress to pass a law guaranteeing the "inalienable" right to return home to the tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents still displaced nearly two years after the storm.
After the speech, Morial refused to comment on an ongoing federal investigation into contracts awarded by his administration that has resulted in more than a dozen guilty pleas and a recent jail sentence for a former top aide.
Questioned by WWL-TV, Morial said he had traveled from his current home in New York "to speak about the recovery," which was the main topic of his 15 minutes on stage.
"In 1962, Bull Connor's dogs and the firehoses of the Birmingham Police Department turned on peaceful demonstrators shocked the conscience of this nation," Morial told the small but enthusiastic audience gathered in the cavernous Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the building named for his father, the city's first black mayor.
"In 2005, it was doggedly disgusting policies. It was a question of where was the urgency of the fire departments and the rescue officials when there were people in need."
Morial said the same federal government that failed to act decisively in the days and weeks after Katrina also has failed to recognize what he said is the lingering injustice of New Orleanians unable to return to their homes and families.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
Don't worry bro! They are all in my Houston neighborhood in section 8s and driving new Cadillac Escalades with their fresh new FEMA extension to March 2009! They seem pretty darn happy too on their new Liberal Plantation as life seems back to normal for them -- raping, robbing and murdering have all gone up!
Look locally before you blame anyone else. Take a lesson from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. We cleaned up our own mess first and got our life back together...You haven't done squat! Except complain...What a jerk!
The few who done the right things are being ignored to give airtime to lazy malcontents.
The problem with that is most don’t want to go home. They would rather stay in Houston and bring that city to its knees with crime and social service needs.
He sounds as inept as Ray Nagin. That’s nearly impossible.
Naah, Morial makes Nagin look like a statesman. Marc should’ve begun his prison sentence for corruption and orchestrating mass-scale voter fraud a LONG time ago.
Don't Fix the Problem, Just Spread the Misery"
He’s not. But he makes up for it in corruption.
Do people have the right to return to towns along the Mississippi that were relocated?
Dont they ever get tired of this picking on the black man Horse Hockey. Damn it gets old.
Look, Mr. Morial, if New Orleans had been filled with poor white people, the result would have been the same.
That was good.
As one who is still here , I say BRAVO!
Every word is true.
What galls me is this constant mantra of ‘ right to return’.
No one’s RIGHT to return has been denied. The ABILITY to return is another thing altogether.
If one does not have the financial ability to return, I suppose the government is supposed to supply it?
We won’t even get into the ADVISABILITY of returning.
If you return to rebuild in a disaster zone where future disasters cannot be prevented, you’re insane; and I think politicians who ENTICE people back into a danger zone should be held criminally responsible.
Trying to revive N.O. after Katrina is like trying to administer medical care when the car wreck victims are still lying in traffic. It is unprotected, still below sea level, barely staggering to its knees, and there will be more hurricanes.
The ‘right’ to return hasn’t been denied anyone. One can travel freely to and from the city. It’s the MEANS to return that not everyone has.
There are some idiots who honestly believe the city is protected against future hurricanes by some cosmic lottery, but most here are stuck for financial or personal reasons. Everyone knows it’s only a matter of time. Katrina put an old, decaying city on the mats. The killer blow will come.
But, but...........Anderson Cooper and Shep Smith told me only the Blacks suffered. How can this be?
(posted with tongue in cheek)
N.O. used to be one of my favorite cities. Fantastic food and wonderful historic sites.
Welcome to FReeRepublic.
That’s good. To make it New Orleanian, the people stuck on the elevator have to blame everyone else as racist for not helping them off, and then demand payments.
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