Learning From New Orleans - One Year Later - SF Bay Area commemorations

As my students at SF State and within the SF Unified School District go back to school this coming week, many displaced students and their families in the Gulf Coast area still are in limbo as New Orleans struggles to rebuild. I have found many of the resources below helpful in teaching about what New Orleans means for our ongoing struggles for educational and social justice in America.
Great Resources for Teaching About New Orleans and Katrina - Rethinking Schools - An Unnatural Disaster: What will Teachers Do?
Rethinking New Orleans Schools By Jordan Flaherty, WireTap.
We urge folks to join us for SF, Oakland Bay commemorations in support of the People's Basic Democratic Demands:
Fight for the Right to Return, a Just Reconstruction, and Black Self-Determination in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast!

* Sunday, August 27th *
Katrina Commemorative Film Festival
6:00 pm - 522 Valencia St., San Francisco

* Monday, August 28th *
Press Conference
12:00 Noon
@FEMA Headquarters - 1111 Broadway Ave., Oakland

* Monday, August 28th *
Katrina Commemoration Vigil
8:00 pm - Oakland City Hall

* Tuesday, August 29th *
Katrina Community Commemoration Event
6:00 pm - @1st Unitarian Church
685 14th St., Oakland

Organized by Survivors for Survivors and the Bay Area Katrina Solidarity Committee.
For more info call (510) 655-7342 or email mxgmoakland@hotmail.com
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Also, Watch Spike Lee's new HBO 4 part documentary WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS.
And, for insightful analysis which puts New Orleans into historic context of civil rights and black liberation check out Eric Mann's Katrina's Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast

Here's a 2005 version of Mann's analysis from Monthly Review http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/mann061005.html
Mann spoke with Kali Akuno of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and others to a packed auditorium of activists and revolutionaries in SF's Mission District earlier this month. Mann and Akuno urged stepped up solidarity and support for New Orleans and Gulf Coast people.

ColorLines Magazine also features an excellent piece by Jordan Flaherty with great examples of people organizing for a new day despite tremendous oppression and repression.
THE KATRINA ANNIVERSARY By Jordan Flaherty www.colorlines.com
Jordan's previous articles from New Orleans are at: http://www.leftturn.org/Articles/SpecialCollections/jordanonkatrina.aspx

Other Resources: ONE YEAR AFTER KATRINA, a new report from Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch. see http://www.reconstructionwatch.org
For a comprehensive calendar of events during the anniversary week, go to http://www.neworleansnetwork.org
Some resources for information and action: Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children - http://www.fflic.org
A Fighting Chance - http://www.a-fighting-chance.org/
People's Organizing Committee: http://www.peoplesorganizing.org
Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund - http://www.peopleshurricane.org/
Justice for New Orleans - http://www.justiceforneworleans.org/
Common Ground - http://www.commongroundrelief.org