- 5 hours ago
A visual journey through the richness of Black beauty and culture in New Orleans—this conversation explores how artists and storytellers have preserved and reimagined the city's spirit in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00My name is Oakley Jones. I'm the senior entertainment editor here at Essence, and I'm honored to welcome you to this important conversation.
00:08Today, we're joined by three incredible voices behind Hurricane Katrina, Race Against Time.
00:14First, the director of the series, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, Tracy A. Curry, and alongside her, New Orleans natives and community advocates, Lynette Boutte and Shelton Alexander.
00:26Y'all welcome to the stage.
00:30It's good to see y'all, and this is a very important conversation, as you all know.
00:43Tracy, I wanted to start with you.
00:45Would you please tell the audience what Hurricane Katrina, Race Against Time is and what exactly it's about?
00:50Yeah, Hurricane Katrina, Race Against Time is a five-part documentary series that revisits the events and the days, weeks, and years.
01:00In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with 20 years of new insights, and more importantly, through the eyes and voices and experiences of these folks, the people who actually lived it and really restores the narrative and the understanding about what Katrina was all about to this city and the people who experienced it in this city.
01:24And then what inspires you to tackle a project of this magnitude?
01:28Yeah, well, so it's funny.
01:30This is sort of a full circle moment for me in a lot of ways, because I started on this project two years ago.
01:35And when I knew that I was going to be working on it, I happened to be here at Essence Festival on this stage on a panel for another show.
01:44And when I knew that I was working on it, I said, well, let me just start talking to, like, local folks that I've met here to ask them if we're going to be telling this story 20 years later, what is important for them, for all of us to know.
01:58And what's funny is, actually, the makeup artist that I talked to two years ago that began my thinking about this series just did my makeup this morning, so we just had this whole moment.
02:07But I spoke to her, I spoke to the Uber driver, I spoke to folks that work here in the convention center, and what was really interesting and stood out to me is that these are all different people, but they all said the same thing.
02:17And that is that, you know, for those of us who experienced Hurricane Katrina as a viewing experience from, you know, your home watching the images on the television, when we come back to visit New Orleans, it feels like New Orleans to us, right?
02:32Like, we're at Essence Festival, it's a vibe, we come for Jazz Fest, we come for Mardi Gras, and it's the same.
02:38But for the people who are from here, every single person said to me, New Orleans is not the same for us, that we think of New Orleans as before Katrina and after Katrina.
02:48And so that let me know that there's something new to say, there is some new insight and wisdom that lives with these folks that needs to be shared with the world.
02:56And so that really informed my understanding of what this is all about and how we should be telling the story.
03:01Now, Shelton, a lot of your footage was used in this documentary, too, especially some of the crazy things that went on in the Superdome and during Katrina.
03:11What inspired you to pick up the camera that day, brother?
03:14Oh, man, yeah, it's one of those things, like I said, well, I'm a poet, you know what I mean, and, like, being on a poetry scene and representing New Orleans and, like, slam competitions and all that.
03:26I was already recording myself, doing stuff, going to the Nationals, and, like, I didn't really think anything about it, but it just was one of those things where, like, wherever I was, I was going to be like, hey, man, I'm just chilling, you know, waiting for the storm to pass over so I could go home.
03:42So I was going to be recording, number one, but that's something that God just, I guess it was in my heart, you know what I mean?
03:48And so when I got there and I just was recording those moments, like, hey, what's going on?
03:53You'll see me all excited in the beginning, you know what I mean?
03:56And then next thing you know, not knowing, it turned into something, you know what I mean?
04:02And then all of a sudden, I'm seeing out the rafters, water's starting to pull in.
04:07And now it's starting to get deeper to me because after the power went out, I was like, I had my video camera, I had three full batteries, we didn't have any power source.
04:17So the fact that I had three batteries and a bunch of blank tapes with me on that journey, to me still, it's just God, man.
04:25I mean, because most people probably wouldn't believe that story outside of the, you know, inside the Superdome.
04:32Like, I could have told this story, I probably wouldn't have made one film.
04:35But the fact that people was able to see it, so when you move, I move in spirit.
04:40Most of my people from New Orleans, we spiritual.
04:43So if you believe in the Mosiah, he's going to put you where you need to be, so it wasn't a matter of me being somewhere else.
04:48He wanted me to be there.
04:49I thought I was going to Baton Rouge.
04:51I never made it.
04:52I got stuck in traffic, went to the dome, and then it turned into this and people got to see it.
04:56So I'm glad that Mosiah allowed me to be able to speak about it and also show it because we're not animals, all right?
05:04We're not refugees, you know what I mean?
05:06We do have class, you know what I mean?
05:08We do have dignity.
05:10We do have pride.
05:11And just because the news media and everybody put it out there and made it seem like we were just destroying each other and we was a bunch of animals, no, you seen us praying around each other.
05:21You seen us marching and singing at times in our darkest hours, so you know what I mean?
05:25So I'm just glad I was able to dispel some of those rumors about who we are because we're way better than that.
05:30We're New Orleans, you heard, man.
05:33Thank you for that, man.
05:36So, Ms. Lynette, this next question is for you.
05:39I wanted to know, having to revisit those first-hand Hurricane Katrina experiences, how did that impact you?
05:47Having to revisit those Hurricane Katrina experiences, how did that impact you personally?
05:54Actually, you never forget it.
05:57So it's always a constant reminder.
06:00If you lived it and you came back, which quite a few of us did.
06:06Now, we went from over almost 800,000 people in New Orleans, now we have 400,000.
06:13So our population has diminished.
06:16But the ones of us who came back, the ones who were resilient, we are no longer just recovering.
06:24We're now repairing and replacing because it's 20 years.
06:28And a lot of us didn't get anything to assist us in our rebuilding.
06:36What we did have, though, were a lot of people coming.
06:39We have no children in our neighborhood.
06:42Okay?
06:43So those are the things that I missed before Katrina was the fact that there were children and seniors in the neighborhood.
06:52And now it's dogs and no seniors, the destruction of our buildings that are historic.
07:04And so what I would like to see, if you want to come here, if you want to do something or find out how things have gone,
07:15come with a crew of carpenters, rebuilders, and go to the communities where you have people who are trying because they did come home.
07:26And so they want to remain in these properties, and we don't have the resources.
07:33There's no resources to help seniors or families to get into affordable housing.
07:39We used to be affordable.
07:41Now we're not.
07:46So, Tracy, I needed to ask you a question.
07:48I have been thinking about this.
07:49So with you being the filmmaker and having to compile all these archival footage, what did that do to you psychologically having to sit with that footage every day?
07:59You know, when you were putting together this documentary.
08:02You know, it's funny.
08:03So first I want to say that I'm sitting up here by myself, but I am representing an amazing team of people who are 100% committed to telling this story with care and intention.
08:12And so I just want to – they're not here, but I just want to acknowledge the whole production team from top to bottom on this.
08:18Just phenomenal, phenomenal job.
08:21So what's interesting is that I've been asked that question a lot over the last couple days, and I guess, like, I don't know.
08:27Maybe I don't have, like, healthy coping practices.
08:29But my feeling was, if these folks could have the courage and the grace to sit with us and recount it and relive it, the least I can do is be in it with them.
08:44So I don't know.
08:45Like, I haven't really – like, and I think to a certain extent, like, it doesn't feel easy, and it shouldn't.
08:52It should feel hard, and it should feel difficult.
08:54And, like, watching this isn't an easy watch, and it shouldn't be, right?
08:58Like, you shouldn't feel comfortable with the way that these folks were failed, right, by the government, even though they kept each other and held each other together.
09:07You shouldn't feel good about what you see happening in this series.
09:10And so in some ways, like, it feels right that it feels uncomfortable, and it sits with you and stays with you in that way.
09:18So maybe I need to just, I don't know, have some healthier therapy practices or something.
09:23But, like, it feels right that it does not feel good to sit with this experience.
09:30So, Shelton, for you, when you were watching this docuseries, is there anything particularly important that stood out to you that you didn't experience when you were in it 20 years ago?
09:39I would say, I mean, because the whole experience, I mean, it was a wreck from the beginning.
09:48But I would say, reflecting now and thinking about it, I guess it was a moment that when we really came together.
09:56Like, I thought that, to me, meant a whole lot.
09:59Because I was looking at, we was looking at the film, it's, yeah, it is very emotional.
10:03So if you can't handle, like, seeing something emotional, it's, I think the first few words, I started getting emotional.
10:09Like, my eyes started welling up with tears, man.
10:11I mean, I couldn't take it.
10:12But I think, overall, I think the thing we need to get away from is, like, people came together from different walks of life.
10:22So I know, you know, it was a majority of us that was in there.
10:25You know, my people, you know, African Americans.
10:27But as you look at the videos, and especially mine, you're going to see, you know, they had way more different races and people that was in there.
10:34And just to see, like, people come together when it was, like, getting really, really dirty, really, really musty, really, really, you know what I mean?
10:42Like, it just was unbearable to be in there.
10:44The smell is just, I still can smell it sometimes, you know what I mean?
10:48Like, just the fact that we came together, and we decided to, like, you know, be positive and clean up.
10:55I think that's one of the memories that's going to really, you know, stick with me forever.
10:58And I hope people know that.
11:00Like, you're going to never know where you're going to be.
11:02You don't know where, you know, the most high is going to take you in life.
11:06And you can have a storm.
11:07And your storm, it might not necessarily be water, wind, or rain.
11:11You might have a storm because you had a loss in your life.
11:15People go through all kinds of storms.
11:16It don't have to take a hurricane to go through a storm.
11:19But one thing you have to do is have faith in the most high, and at the end of the day, it's going to be what it's supposed to be.
11:25You know what I mean?
11:28Yep, yep, yep.
11:30And, Ms. Lynette, you spoke about how the population went from 800,000 to 400,000.
11:37And before Katrina, the city was just surrounded by so much history.
11:41What do you miss most about that time before Katrina?
11:45Well, most people, if you've ever studied the history of New Orleans, we were here before the United States.
11:53Okay?
11:53So, if you are truly a New Orleanian, then you know what buildings and what monuments and things that, as kids, we could walk anywhere in the city.
12:07And you could walk past houses that were built in the 1700s.
12:13And what happened was, instead of people coming in and wanting to make these residents back into what they originally were,
12:23now we have too many Airbnbs.
12:26We have too many streets that, you know, I lost my car to a pothole on Galvest Street.
12:36All right?
12:36So, when somebody says what happened, well, the pothole killed my car, because it was deeper than my car was.
12:42But all we really need is we need to come together and understand that something like this, the way it happened,
12:52and Spence had a different experience because he was in a cover.
12:57He was inside the Superdome.
12:59So, I was on the bridge with no cover, no air blowing, just a lot of people who were desperate.
13:09And when you watched what was going on there and how I ended up actually on the bridge,
13:15because the house I was in didn't get water, but I was forced out.
13:19So, then I ended up taking routes that brought me from four feet of water to six to seven feet of water in different areas
13:27because the direction they sent us in to tell us that they were going to pick us up
13:32was going away from the elevation that I was in, which was only four feet.
13:38So, we ended up having to hold on to boats and walk through St. Bernard Avenue from Broad Street to the Circle Food Store.
13:46And trust me, the Circle Food Store was not covered by water, all right?
13:53It might have had seven, eight inches of water, but it's on high ground.
13:58And so, when people say, oh, the Circle Food Store was covered with water.
14:02No, it wasn't.
14:03And the guys that were going in and out of there, they weren't looting.
14:07They were getting survival equipment, okay?
14:10So, if you don't understand that if somebody's not going in a place and they got a gun
14:17and they're forcing you to do something and they're taking food or clothing because everybody was wet,
14:24you're not looking for money.
14:25You're looking for survival things that evidently were destroyed with the water.
14:32The unnecessary, let me put it this way, the unnecessary water,
14:35because there was no water when that storm ended, all right?
14:41That flood was man-made by the Corps of Engineers.
14:50Hey.
14:53So, Tracy, I'm pretty sure you had so many hours of putting this film together,
15:01and I mean, this docuseries, I'm sorry.
15:02How did you decide what to keep in and what to take out?
15:05I'm pretty sure that was like a tedious process.
15:07What do you think was more important to put in and vice versa, you know?
15:12Well, the story unfolds sort of in a horizontal timeline across the five episodes
15:20from the moment that the storm came and all of the events that happened afterwards,
15:24but also each episode is about its own thing within that.
15:28And so understanding that was the structure of the story,
15:31it really informed, like, what footage we were going to use,
15:36how we were going to approach the storytelling.
15:39There are so many things that I wish we could have done ten more episodes,
15:44because there's just the consequences of Katrina for this city are felt on so many levels,
15:52from, like, what happened to the school system,
15:54to what happened to the public hospital, to what happened to the public house.
15:58I mean, there's so many, so many layers to this to unravel.
16:03But I think, first and foremost, for me, like I said earlier,
16:06was restoring the truth of this story to the people of this city,
16:11allowing the people of this city be the experts of their own experience.
16:14And so a lot of times when we're, you know, looking,
16:17there's, like, thousands of hours of news footage,
16:19and, you know, the media portrayed black folks in the city as just sort of a lawless,
16:23reckless, having descended into this animalistic kind of state, right,
16:28which we know not to be true.
16:30And as we saw in the episode that we watched yesterday,
16:32a lot of the clips that we picked focused on the humanity of these people, right,
16:37and insists upon the viewer seeing the humanity of these people.
16:42So the clip in particular that I talked about yesterday,
16:45it's a young black man, he's shirtless, right?
16:47And so we know because of preexisting media narratives about black folks,
16:51what that's supposed to signal to you, that this is a dangerous person, right?
16:56This is the problem.
16:57But the clip that we've used, he's looking in the camera
17:00and speaking to his grandmother and his mother saying,
17:03if you hear your son, I'm hurting, right?
17:06You must see the humanity of that person.
17:08And so I think when, for me, when that is sort of the guiding light
17:12to how we approach the series, which is restoring the humanity
17:15and the recognition of the humanity to these people,
17:18it kind of, it doesn't make it easy, but it makes it very clear,
17:21the kind of image, the visual storytelling that we wanted to do here.
17:26So, Michelle, and this is my final question, my brother.
17:2920 years after Hurricane Katrina, what does healing look like for New Orleans?
17:32Yeah, it's going to be tough, like, as far as healing,
17:37because I'm going to say, man, I gave so much
17:41and came back, moved into the FEMA trailer, and went at it for a long time.
17:46I taught for 13 years, kept an open mic poetry show for 16 years,
17:52and, like, just this past six years, I moved to H-Town.
17:55I still have my crib, like, in Violet and a parish down there,
18:00but I had to get away just for a second because I gave so much to the city
18:05and the kids, like, and it was hard for me to function in healing.
18:10So, you know, they're going to have people, you take on debts and stuff like that.
18:13It was so bad for me, I lost, like, my stepdad, 2006, right after,
18:18you know what I mean, Katrina.
18:20Then my auntie died five months later, my grandmother died six months later,
18:24and my mom died five months after that.
18:27So I never healed.
18:29Like, being in this convention center right now, I'm getting emotional.
18:32When I went to the Superdome, I get emotional.
18:35I don't go, I don't come here a lot, and I don't go there a lot
18:37because I get, like, flashbacks real, real bad.
18:40I see everybody still out there on the street stuck begging for help.
18:45Like, I know the people that was in here.
18:47I had to walk this place four or five times to find the people that had my keys
18:51to help get them out of the storm.
18:53So healing is going to take a long time, and I'm going to say I think I hope people
18:58get the fact that I said, like, I've been a big, tough, strong man my whole life,
19:01the Marines, college football, all of that.
19:04But I've been broken down.
19:05This broke me down.
19:07Some things, as a man, you're not going to be able to recover from.
19:10I don't mind crying because God moved me in the spirit,
19:13and it's going to come out to me because I love my city and I love my people.
19:18And, yeah, so, thank you.
19:24So I'm going to just pray, you know, for everybody, though,
19:28because right now we're facing some tough times.
19:31We don't know what's predicted in the future, but, man,
19:34we're going to have to come together.
19:36Y'all got to know this right now.
19:38Like, we all might face another Katrina together.
19:40What are we going to do?
19:41Are we going to be like, no, I'm not going to help him because he's black.
19:44I'm not going to pick them up because they're white.
19:46We're not going to help him because he's Hispanic.
19:47We're not going to help them because they're Asian.
19:49We can't be on that right now.
19:51God's going to test all of us, and we just need to be ready to answer the call.
19:56God bless y'all, man.
19:57So I want to thank you again for all our panelists and everyone here joining us today in Essence
20:03to see the full series of Nat Geo's Hurricane Katrina Race Against Time.
20:08Please be sure to tune in to the series premiering on Nat Geo July 27th at 8, 7 central
20:14with three back-to-back episodes of July 28th on Disney Plus and Hulu.
20:18Thank y'all.
20:18I appreciate it.
20:19Give them one more round of applause, y'all.
Comments