4 November, 2009 - Project Hope announces the release of a new paper, “Unasked Questions after Katrina,” another product of the Katrina narrative project that led to Overcoming Katrina. This paper explores some of the under-appreciated causes of displaced Katrina survivors’ depression, anxiety, and stress that heightens their cardiovascular disease risk today and in the future. >>Click to read more

“Post-Katrina 2009: Where Are We Now?” July 2009 >>Click to read more

February 2009 "The narrators of Overcoming Katrina allow us to understand the richness of pre-Katrina community life and the non-material sources of trauma. Stories of survivors of Hurricane Katrina go beyond the mere retelling of the horrors of their tragedy and its impact on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast . . . These stories provide an opportunity for Americans to reflect on how we want to be viewed internationally for our treatment of the most vulnerable in our midst." —President Jimmy Carter Overcoming Katrina brings together the moving stories of New Orleanians who fought to survive Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, while exploring a wide cross-section of the African American experience. Collected here are testimonies from nurses, businessmen, community organizers, and others who lived, loved, worked, and celebrated life in a great American city before being scattered across the country. Their narratives serve as memorials to the corner stores, Baptist churches, community health clinics, and other mainstays of community life destroyed by the flood waters, making the case for why New Orleans matters and offering a vision of a safe, just, rebuilt city. D'Ann R. Penner is the Social Justice Fellow at the Office of the Appellate Defender. Keith C. Ferdinand is the Founder of Heartbeats Life Center, a cardiology clinic and human rights organization based in New Orleans's Ninth Ward.

Purchase from Amazon.com for $19.95.

If you've already purchased a book for yourself and desire to make a contribution to the HOPE project, please feel free to purchase multiple copies. In the words of the late, great Crescent City sculpturer, John Scott, "pass it on" to someone influential or an individual who would benefit from experiencing these wonderful oral histories, but cannot afford to purchase the text himself or herself. The proceeds from the sale of the book will go to HOPE for helping those who are still struggling to rebuild their lives after the ravages of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to the Gulf Coast.

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“Post-Katrina 2009: Where Are We Now?”

The realities of living along the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf Coast and beyond are that each summer, as the temperature rises to 100 degrees and above and hot water pours out of the cold water facet, individual citizens become increasingly concerned, if not frankly paralyzed, by the idea that another major hurricane looms in the near future. The summer of 2009 has been hot, even by Gulf Coast standards and the sauna-like environment with the hot-water bathtub otherwise known as the Gulf of Mexico is a perfect environment for a new major storm. In the city of New Orleans, the fruits of multiple volunteer, religious, and governmental efforts continue to flourish, although the Lower Ninth Ward, large areas of Gentilly, New Orleans East and other neighborhoods appear little improved from August, 2005.

One of the major accomplishments of the Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC) and our Project Hope, along with raising over $300,000 for direct aid to the people affected by this unnatural disaster, has been the publication and dissemination of Overcoming Katrina: African American Voices from the Crescent City and Beyond, with a foreword by former president Jimmy Carter (New York: Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2009). The academic leadership for this text has been provided by Dr. D’Ann Penner, the Office of the Appellate Defender’s Social Justice Fellow, and we are collectively proud of the positive reception the work has received. Reverend Aldon Cotton describes the book as a “miracle” for being unique among the research products created after the deluge of outsiders to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

As Chief Science Officer and Director of Hope, I along with Dr. Penner and many of the narrators have tirelessly promoted the book, the proceedings of which go to continued relief efforts. I personally appeared along with others on several television and radio shows in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Philadelphia. Since the book’s release, there have been eight book signings in New Orleans held at Community Book Center, the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, Christian Unity Church, Borders Books, LSU School of Public Health, A Tisket a Tasket Books and Gifts Baskets, Jazz Fest, and Essence Festival. Two book signings were also held in New York at Hue-Man’s Books and a retreat of the Katrina and Rita Survivors’ Assembly. The publication of Overcoming Katrina demonstrates the power of community-based booksellers, such as Vera Warren of the Community Book Center, celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary. Community Book Center was the first commercial outlet to highlight the book.

The book’s fearless in-house editor at Palgrave, Chris Chappell, has gone out of his way to promote and disseminate the book. He negotiated for competitive pricing in January, worked extra hours at home to bring together edited clips of three of the most moving audio interviews for the website and features the book at history conferences around the country, like the annual conference of the Organization of American Historians in Seattle this past March. In addition, Palgrave has nominated Overcoming Katrina for the Oral History Association’s Book Award Prize.

The ABC, the Office of the Appellate Defender, and the Ben Hooks Institute for Social Change all issued press releases announcing the publication. It has been featured in the Amistad Research Center’s newsletter and on Columbia University's Center for the Study of Human Right's home page for months.

Indications of the book’s success are abundant. The first printing was sold out several weeks before the official release date of March 3, 2009. It will soon go into its fourth printing. Palgrave Macmillan has it classified in three categories: United States/African American History, Race and Ethnicity and Urban Sociology. It has been Palgrave’s bestseller in the first and third categories since its publication and the third best seller of 157 books in the second category. According to World Cat, 116 (university) libraries in three provinces in Canada and 32 states plus the District of Columbia in the United States have already purchased and processed at least one copy of the book. The libraries range from Harvard University and M.I.T. to Nicholls State University in Louisiana and the Disaster Services Library in Maryland. Overcoming Katrina was reviewed by Judy Boudreaux in The New Orleans Tribune.

Some of the narrators are augmenting funds to rebuild their churches and homes by selling copies of the book. Volunteers and youth groups are engaging with the narrators and garnering treasured signatures. http://nsmbcmissions.wordpress.com/ They then carry the book back to every corner of the United States with a new view of history and current events from primary sources with whom they have spent time.

Already some professors are expressing enthusiasm about using the book in their classes. In the fall, Demetrius White and Dr. Penner will be making a presentation based on the book at a symposium in Montreal, Quebec entitled “Remember War, Genocide, and Other Human Rights Violations: Oral History, New Media and the Arts.” http://storytelling.concordia.ca/

Overcoming Katrina has been given to influential people from Bishop Desmond Tutu to Representative Melvin Watts, from Reverend Joe Lowery to Dr. Marian Wright Edelman, from the Reverend Canon Dr. Jane Shaw Dean of Divinity at Oxford University to Senator Mary Landrieu. It has traveled as a gift to South Africa, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, China and Japan. Foreign publishers will be given a chance to buy the copyrights for translations at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2009.

Sincerely,

Keith Ferdinand, MD, FACC
Director, Health Outreach Prevention & Empowerment (HOPE) Project
Association of Black Cardiologists, Inc.
5355 Hunter Road
Atlanta, GA 30349
404-201-6632 - office
>Email

After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, the Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies (IWES) knew that psychological support would be critical to the emotional recovery of New Orleans. In response, IWES created a communal forum for people who had survived the hurricane and managed to return to New Orleans, post-Katrina. Many of these returning New Orleanians found themselves confronted by a city that did not seem to want them anymore. Despite socioeconomic and gender differences, their descriptions of depression, rage, and confusion about how to get their lives back on track were uncannily similar. The book, Stories of Survival and Beyond, is now available from www.lulu.com