In the latter half of 2007, the U.S. ruling class made two decisive moves to finish the wholesale dismantling and privatization of the public infrastructure of New Orleans to consummate its ethnic cleansing and realign the political demography of the South.

The first move was the assumption of direct political control over the city by the local white bourgeoisie. When former City Councilman at Large and leading candidate for mayor in 2010 Oliver Thomas was forced to step down, an emergency election was held that the white bourgeoisie capitalized on to install one of its own, Jackie Clarkson. With Clarkson's installation, the New Orleans City Council went from majority New Afrikan - Black - to majority white for the first time in over 30 years.

The second move was to destroy the city's public housing. Capitalizing on the fracturing of the resident movement - itself caused by the divide and conquer schemes of the developers and the state - the bourgeoisie directed the federal courts and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to destroy four of the five major public housing developments in New Orleans by Dec. 15, 2007, to ensure maximum capitalization via various tax-credit schemes.

This move would permanently cleanse the city of more than 80,000 New Afrikan working class residents and further exacerbate the city's chronic housing crisis - a doubling of rents and a near tripling of the homeless population from 6,000 to more than 15,000 - some estimates suggesting as many as 25,000 - post-Katrina.

The fight back

As always, oppressed and working peoples didn't take this assault without a fight. To stem the predation of "disaster capitalism" ushering in yet another round of neo-liberal restructuring assaults, the Gulf Coast Reconstruction Movement was able to mount two essential fight back campaigns. The first was the Malcolm Suber bid for the at large City Council seat and the launching of the Reconstruction Party in September 2007. The second was the mobilization to stop the public housing demolitions and the formation of the Coalition to Stop the Demolitions in November 2007.

The campaign to run Malcolm Suber, a long-time New Orleans communist revolutionary, for the City Council seat vacated by Oliver Thomas had a three-fold objective. One, to challenge the blatant move of the white bourgeoisie to seize the City Council, and with it effectively legislate away the right of return for the city's historic New Afrikan majority; two, to assert revolutionary working class leadership in the Black Liberation and Reconstruction Movements in the city and region; and three, to create a new vehicle for New Afrikan and other oppressed and exploited peoples in the region, and potentially the country, to contest for political power in their own interests and name via the Reconstruction Party.

Against great odds, including a virtually non-existent budget and less then six weeks to campaign, the Suber campaign was a critical test run and step forward for the Reconstruction Movement. While Malcolm only finished seventh amongst a field of 13, his domination of the debates and the overall propaganda of the campaign forced the local bourgeoisie, New Afrikan and white, to address questions about the right of return, the military occupation of the city, wholesale privatization of the city's public infrastructure - i.e., housing, schools, transportation and sanitation, etc. - a living wage and the right to union protections it was deliberately trying to sweep under the rug. The polarization created by this campaign helped set the stage for the critical "Days of December" that put the struggle in New Orleans briefly back into the world spotlight.

In response to the decisive October move by HUD and the federal courts to destroy four of the five major public housing developments in New Orleans - i.e., B.W. Cooper, C.J. Peete, Lafitte and St. Bernard - several key organizations in the Reconstruction Movement, including the Peoples' Hurricane Relief Fund, Survivors Village, Critical Resistance, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, the Homecoming Center, C3/Hands Off Iberville and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, decided to issue a national "pledge of resistance" mobilization call to stop the proposed demolitions by means of direct action.

This call lead to the formation of the Coalition to Stop the Demolitions, which waged four intense weeks of direct actions, culminating in the Dec. 20, 2007, police riot at City Hall, wherein the coalition effectively halted the demolition of three of the four housing developments mentioned above - for a time.

Read Part 2 next week. Kali Akuno is national organizer for the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the Coalition to Stop the Demolitions. Email him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it The Hurricane Information Relief Network is the Bay View newspaper's nonprofit 501(c)(3) project to provide information and news coverage by, for and about the Katrina survivors who remain stranded across the U.S. and those who want to return home to rebuild their lives and communities. Send news and financial contributions to HRIN, EIN 20-4324012, 4917 Third St., San Francisco CA 94124, (415) 671-0789 or toll free 1 (877) 226-8100, fax (415) 671-0316 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Tag it:

?