Below is an email I recieved from an acquaintance I met at Bluestockings Bookstore in Manhattan. She recently went to New Orleans, and when she came back she wrote and wrote and wrote and eventually sent out one extremely long informative note. I’m presenting an edited version below. Since it was written franticly, quickly and emotionally, you might notice some spelling and other grammatical errors: I’m reproducing it as it was written. I apologize for the length, but I have already edited so much out of it, I didn’t want to continue. - Lucy

I just arrived back from the Occupied Territory in the
West Bank of New Orleans (Algiers, Louisiana) a couple
weeks ago.

I stayed in a place called tent city. Tent city was
set up for contracted workers, mostly people working
for water and sewage companies. It is an open field
with dozens of 15’X20’ tents lined up in rows. It is
completely surrounded by National Guard. I stayed in a
tent with other volunteers. Tent city is located
exactly 7 blocks from the health clinic that I worked
at. Every night we were stopped and or harassed by the
NOPD. In fact, what I learned very quickly is that the
National Guard’s greatest roll (for our use anyway),
was to protect volunteers (and if they cared,
residents) from the NOPD. Everyone is scared shitless
of the NOPD, even some National Guardsmen that I met.

The NOPD surrounded our clinic every night.
Threatening. Harassing. Arresting, Detaining, Ruling
the streets.

I met a man who went to rescue his dead, 15 year old
son’s body during the floods. As he picked up his son
in his arms, he was arrested and put in jail for
looting. He was not able to find his son’s body again.

The first week I was there I met another group of
volunteers working at Mama D’s, a remarkable community
organizer and former Black Panther located in the 7th
Ward (She refused to evacuate, knowing full-well she
would not have been allowed to return), were arrested
for criminal trespassing while helping clean out a
resident’s apartment. They were 3 white men and 1
black man. They were all arrested. The black man was
beaten. They were all released the next day with a
fine and community service. I laugh. They were
arrested for doing community service! All of them gave
up their lives to move down to NOLA just to do that
for which they were arrested.

I worked with a group called Common Ground. Common
Ground has two parts; the collective and the free
health care clinic. I worked mostly with the clinic. I
also worked to mobilize clinics in other areas. We
were stationed in Algiers, across the river. Algiers
had no flooding, just rain and wind damage. However,
everyone was still forced to evacuate. Algiers had and
still has shelter that could hold approximately 40,000
displaced persons. It is currently holding ZERO. The
state won’t allow any building to occupy anyone. ‘It
is not safe for anyone’. Well, it is ‘safe enough’ for
FEMA. Algiers has never had available health care
before the Common Ground Clinic. Malik Rahim donated
our clinic space. Malik is a long time community
organizer, Green Party candidate and former Black
Panther. The Common Ground Collective is a mass
distribution center operating out of his home. Seven
blocks away is our health clinic, in his donated a
Mosque. We literally have bed sheets hanging from
found pvs piping dividing some kind of doctor’s
spaces. We have four spaces blanketed off and about
8-10 stations made up of dumpster-dived chairs. The
Common Ground Free Health Clinic has served over
16,000 people in New Orleans since the levy’s broke (2
weeks out dated). The collective has done this with
zero aid from any major relief agency.
In this small space, complete with recycled
furnishings, has seen more patients per day and kept
more accurate records than ANY hospital or health
clinic in ALL of New Orleans AND surrounding towns.
And it is the ONLY one that stayed open during Rita.
And this, my people, is what anarchism looks like!

I met countless people trapped or forced in their cars
for 2-4 days. And countless people that were hit by
Rita after fleeing Katrina.

Another couple, an elderly couple, was stuck in the
same parking lot. The woman tried desperately to get
help from someone, anyone because her husband was on
an oxygen tank. They were purposely denied aid. He
died. And she sat in the car with his body.

There was another group of 5 Black men who were
looters. The news called them looters. They looted 1
boat, risked their lives, and rescued over 350 people.
They took turns allowing only 1 of them in the boat at
a time, so that the other 4 could be saving people and
so there would be more room in the boat. Keep in mind
the extremely contaminated water. 350 PEOPLE! They are
america’s heros! And they were interviewed by only one
leftist organization (A.N.S.W.E.R.)

I met many people who looted boats and refrigerators
(they took off the doors and motors and used them as
boats) to save people’s lives. Many hundreds and
hundreds of people’s lives.

Another huge group of heros: the Soul Patrol. They are
the eyes and ears and hearts of the 7th Ward. They
know who is coming back, who is being forced out, and
who is being arrested. They claim to have heard the
bombing of the levees. I will leave you with that
thought. Well, I may come back to it later. I digress.
The Soul Patrol is also responsible for hundreds and
hundreds of lives being saved.

The Cracker Squad. The cracker squad is made up of Klu
Klux Klansman (and, you know, some NOPD and
firefighters). During the days of the flooding, these
were the gun wars you heard about-its just not how you
heard about them. The hunt was on. The cracker squad
hunted, shot at, and killed the Soul Patrol and anyone
else they saw who is black. The week I came back to
NYC, I heard they had found a pile of 50 black men
shot in the head. The cracker squad. The NOPD. The
city. The state. The federal government. Everyone had
a smoking barrel.

The history behind the Common Ground Collective:
Robert King Wilkerson is one of the Angola 3. For
those of you who do not know who the Angola 3 are,
they are 3 former Panther Party members, who have been
held in solitary confinement for 20 and 30 years for
wrongful convictions because of their activism during
the Civil Rights Movement. King was released in 2001.
King is 65 years old. After being in solitary
confinement for 20 years in the Angola Prison in
Louisiana, he was trapped in the 9th Ward. He called
upon 3 long-time friends and dedicated supporters.
Malik, Scott Crow, and Brian (I forget his last name,
my apologies). Brian and Scott (both white) ‘looted’ a
boat to go rescue King. They snuck into the 9th Ward
(since it was illegal to enter or leave. It still is
in the lower 9th). They became a part of multiple gun
wars. By cracker squads and residents who were
desperate to get the boat and get out. That is when
they decided they had to turn back. They did not want
to shoot at innocent people, who were just trying to
survive, just to save 1 person. As they were trying to
figure out what they were going to do, the National
Guard came upon them. The N.G. told them to get out.
They refused. The N.G. asked them if they were armed.
They lied and said no. The N.G. told them they better
get armed. They then told them that they had an
automatic pistol. The Guard said they better get a lot
more than that. After some confrontation, Brian jumped
in the water and told the National Guard that they
would have to watch him die if they did not help them
save their friend, King. Finally, after a long while,
they agreed. Thus began the momentum behind the
collective.

The day I was leaving 3 young men, were brought back
from the makeshift prison at the Grey Hound Bus
Station in the Central Business District (CBD), to the
free health clinic where I was volunteering. They came
home to their housing projects in the 9th ward to see
their home, see what they could salvage. They had
evacuated to Houston. The young men were 17, 18, & 18
years old. Two were cousins. When they were trying to
get into their home, the New Orleans Police Department
(NOPD) showed up and began harassing them about
trespassing. One of them tried to prove to the NOPD
that it was in fact his home and that his mom lived
right around the corner and that she could verify that
this is HIS HOME. The police would not listen. His
mother watched all of this from her window. She called
everyone she knew, any one that was in the area came
to tell the police that these boys do live here. And
also to bear witnesses. As soon as people started to
come, the NOPD threw the kids in the car and took them
to the Grey Hound prison. No, it is not a prison, it
is a cage. It is a hell. These 3 young men were
stripped searched and beaten, severely beaten. Beaten
in the face. They were beaten in the prison,
surrounded by armed guards. They had not once fought
back or struggled. As they were being escorted to
their cage (I say cage, because that is what the have
set up. It is an out door cage with no benches, no
chairs, no nothing. There was a port-a-potty set up
every 5-6 cages, so if you weren’t lucky enough to
have a port-a-potty…). As they were being escorted
to the cage, a police officer pulled out a shotgun.
One of the young men began running. Screaming. Crying,
for his life. The police officers opened fire and
shot, at point blank range with beanbag pellets. Then
they brought out the dogs. Just to scare them a bit
more. Then they were put in their cage. Beaten up and
now covered in welts. Their out door cage with nothing
to sleep on but the cement. They were given a public
defender. The public defender defended each cage. This
particular cage had 21 men and boys in it. The advice
he gave: plead guilty; at least you will be released
tomorrow with fine and community service. If you plead
not guilty you will be sent to Hunts Point for 21 days
without Bond. Every one pled guilty. Everyone feared
their lives. Everyone single person was in cage for
trespassing or violation of curfew.