REPORTER: Nick Lazaredes
These jazz funeral processions are an integral part of life in New Orleans. This one is to pay tribute to those who lost their lives during and after Hurricane Katrina. It's an upbeat affair but there's very little to celebrate here.
Almost six months after Katrina's devastation there's a widespread fear that the city will never be the same again, that city authorities don't want poor black residents back in the reconstructed New Orleans.
MALIK RAHIM: It's a reality - it's not no fear, it's a blatant reality. That's all they are concerned about, is property. Human life don't mean a damn thing in New Orleans.
Before Katrina the city's Lower 9th Ward district was home to 14,000 families, most of them poor and black. Unlike New Orleans' wealthier suburbs, here there's still no power, no water and no rebuilding, five months after Katrina. In fact, the residents of the Lower 9th Ward are struggling for what they see as the very survival of their suburb.
CROWD CHANT: No demolition! No demolition! No demolition!
The focus of this demonstration outside City hall is to stop the City Council demolishing any more homes in the Lower 9th Ward.
MONIQUE COOK, LOWER 9TH WARD RESIDENT: I grew up in the Lower 9th Ward and I will not stand to have any homes demolished. I think it's unfair and it's a conspiracy.
Not only have residents been banned from returning, the City Council has proposed a system of compulsory acquisition for homes they want to demolish. Under the law of Eminent Domain, the Council says it has the right to buy homes and land without the owners' consent.
CYNTHIA WILLARD-LEWIS, LOCAL COUNCILLOR: We can come together and say, "This is wrong!"
Suspecting a conspiracy to keep them away for good, residents took their fight to the courts.
CYNTHIA WILLARD-LEWIS: We can go to the courts as a refuge and a haven to seek justice that in this battle for restoration it is not left to the executive branch of government that has kept electricity out, water out, blue roofs out, FEMA trailers out, Red Cross out, everything out...
Last month residents were encouraged by the fact that they'd won a temporary restraining order against any further demolition, but as today's demonstration is wrapping up a new crisis erupts.
ISHMAEL MOHAMMED, LAWYER: We have a...we have a... ..we have a resident on the phone, we have a resident on the phone right now - she's watching them at Galvez and Rene bulldozing a home in violation of the restraining order that we already have against any bulldozing going on in the Lower 9th Ward.
Activists, organisers, our students, we need to get down there now. Lawyers, we need to get to court.
15 minutes later residents, lawyers and activists converge on the city work team bulldozing in the Lower 9th Ward.
The workers claim that they've simply been told by city officials to clear rubble from the sidewalks, but the crowd will have none of it.
MAN: We will - we will move the people. Just get your dozers to stop. Ain't no danger as long as they stop. Just outside of the work zone. Ain't no work happening, right?
The bulldozing work is being supervised by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the same authority which was in charge of New Orleans' doomed levy system. When an Army Corp official arrives he's quickly swamped by protesters.
ARMY OFFICAL: There is no demolition down here and none set to be down here any time in the future, right now.
REPORTER: But what about when there is a house in the street, sir? Is that considered demolition...
ARMY OFFICAL: No comment. ..
REPORTER: or street cleaning?
ARMY OFFICAL: It's considered debris by the City and that is not on the agenda yet, either.
REPORTER: It's against the court order, is that correct?
ARMY OFFICAL: I have no comment.
PROTESTER 1: It's not debris! These are people's homes! Shame on you!
Quickly overwhelmed by protesters the work site is slowly closed down and the lawyers swing into action.
TRACIE WASHINGTON, LAWYER: They are in violation of a court order. You know, we've got the film, now. Are they moving out? What are they doing? What are they doing? Are they leaving? They're leaving, they're leaving.
Just a few blocks away from where the bulldozers were stopped, Byron Le France is cleaning up his home. His first opportunity to come back and inspect the damage was in early December. At that time, he says, he was almost shot outside his own home.
BYRON LE FRANCE, LOWER 9TH WARD RESIDENT: Well, my daddy was right here with me. We was right here in my yard. A lady National Guard and a man National Guard came over here harassing me, pulled a gun, pulled a AK47 rifle out and turned it at me to shoot me. I'm not bullshitting you. I grabbed a gun that I had, my wife went and grabbed a gun that we had in the house but by the time that happened my Daddy said, "Don't start nothing, go get their superiors."
By the time Byron was allowed into his house there was nothing left to salvage, but it is structurally sound. He spent over a month stripping his walls and cleaning the mud and mould plastered throughout his home. With no help from the government he's used his savings to clean up his and his father's house.
BYRON LE FRANCE: I mean, I put $2,300 on this one and $2,300 on his - that's about a good $6,000 right there for two houses.
REPORTER: And where does that money come from? Insurance?
BYRON LE FRANCE: Out of my pocket.
REPORTER: Out of your pocket?
BYRON LE FRANCE: Out of my pocket, out of my pocket. I haven't got a lick from my insurance company yet.
REPORTER: What about the city government? Have they helped you?
BYRON LE FRANCE: Never! As a matter of fact we have more family down here than anything and we're sticking together and that's basically what we're doing, sticking together, and if you don't you're going to be out in the cold.
AUGUST LE FRANCE: You know, it's so close to what you call Bourbon Street...
Byron's father, August, who's lived in the Lower 9th Ward all his life, is convinced the city government wants to turn over the suburb to developers.
AUGUST LE FRANCE: They call this, a long time ago when I was a kid, coming up, this was 'trash-land', and they sold it for little or nothing and now it's a rich-land, you know, for tourists. They want to put, like, an airport back up in here, and...
With no essential services to the suburb and the threat that if they're found by police in their homes after the night-time curfew they'll be shot, residents like Byron have to leave for temporary shelter outside the city every night.
BYRON LE FRANCE: Everybody wants to come home, it's just that we can't come home because the government is trying to keep us away from home. You all ain't seen nothing.
The body of August's best friend was only found a month ago.
AUGUST LE FRANCE: You see that house right over there, with the black roof on it? That's were they found that man, a month ago. Now, how they were searching for bodies and they're still finding bodies down here. What's going on? What are the city officials doing? What is your government doing? What are your President doing? And they're still finding bodies. What, they don't care about people down here?
WOMAN: The National Guard stopped me and I had to go and get a colonel from across the river to escort me to my own house, but after that...
BYRON LE FRANCE: They tried to shoot me and my father right in front of my house, baby!
Every few days Byron and his father attend a neighbourhood street meeting in the Lower 9th Ward. This is the only chance residents have here to vent their feelings and plan their protest action.
RESIDENT: They're saying we're going to assume the financial responsibility of tearing it down, or what? Are they saying we're going to take over that land and pay the people off? Do you know what? Are they going to pay the people off for the land or are they just going to take it? I want to know.
What particularly galls these residents is that most of them own their homes. In fact, the Lower 9th Ward district of New Orleans has the highest proportion of black home-ownership in America.
AUGUST LE FRANCE: People here are property owners and pay taxes on their land, and you mean to tell me they can't come back to their land! This is communism.
In some of the city's wealthier suburbs residents already use trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Agency, FEMA, as temporary shelter while their homes are repaired. In fact, throughout the city thousands of empty trailers are being stored on vacant lots, but in the Lower 9th Ward not a single trailer has been handed over. Residents now fear that with no permanent population the law of Eminent Domain will be used to get rid of them.
WOMAN: Any area of the city of New Orleans that is sparsely populated they are going to want to use the Eminent Domain to take over the properties. You have to repopulate. If you own the land, put in for a FEMA trailer. How would they feel if 5,000 people in the Lower 9th Ward called up tonight and said, "I want a trailer on my property, right now"?
At City Hall the man whom most residents blame for their misery, Mayor Ray Nagin, says there's no plan to abandon New Orleans' poor black communities.
RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS MAYOR: We are rebuilding the city. We're undoing what Katrina did. We're starting with the areas that had little flooding or no flooding and then we're working towards the river and we're moving out as utilities become available.
Beyond explaining that the hardest-hit communities will take the longest to repair, Mayor Nagin seems to have few details about the repopulation of New Orleans' poor black suburbs and housing projects.
RAY NAGIN: Now the issue is, what other services are going to be out there? Grocery stores, you know, Wal-Marts, you name it - and every individual has to make the decision on what's best for them.
REPORTER: What plans do you have for the Lower 9th Ward?
RAY NAGIN: What plans? Ah, trying to deal with this lawsuit, right now.
REPORTER: But, I mean, is there a vision there, I mean, a vision for the future? These people seem to have a lot of concerns.
RAY NAGIN: I'm not just focused on the 9th Ward. I mean, that seems to be the sexy thing that you guys are really, you know, turned on by. I'm working with the entire city and there's three or four different distinct areas that had the most devastation. The 9th Ward happens to be one. New Orleans East, around the London Avenue Canal and the 17th Street Canal. Those are the areas that will probably require the most resources in this rebuild.
At public celebrations like New Year's Eve, Nagin's brash style, once a vote-winner, now gets a decidedly mixed response.
RAY NAGIN: Let me just say "thank you" to all of you for being out here.
PROTESTER: Why don't you quit, resign? You've no right to be here.
RAY NAGIN: Thank you so much for being here.
With public anger at Nagin growing louder the Mayor has been carefully stage-managing his appearances, like this inter-faith service, where he's keen to promote his black credentials.
RAY NAGIN: And all of you folk that are thinking this is an opportunity for you to kind of do something different and take control of this city, I got news for you, too - this is our city and it's going to continue to be our city and we're not going backwards, we're going forwards - together, and put them rocks down, thank you.
Although much of the public resentment has been directed at Nagin, the State's Governor, Kathleen Blanco, is also under intense scrutiny. According to her Deputy, Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, there is a commitment from state authorities to maintain the racial mix, but helping poor blacks will need federal dollars.
MITCH LANDRIEU, LOUISIANE LT. GOVERNOR: The commitment has to be from the leadership that we really want to invite diversity back so that when we go to Congress and you ask them for incentives you make sure you get tax incentives to re-build moderate to low income housing as well as those individuals that have the ability to pay on their own.
You have good planning so that when you deal with land use you make sure that the city is open, from a zoning perspective. That's a commitment that the leaders have to make based on response to the constituents that we have.
I know those of us that are in power now, those of us that seek to be in power in the future, are committed to that particular idea.
Despite the commitment to diversity, the city hardly seems in a rush to bring back its poorest citizens. In much of the inner city relatively undamaged public housing projects lie abandoned, with no essential services. At the St Bernard housing project, despite the hardships some people are still living here, in defiance of the law.
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: We still got people living in this area. You can see people walking around here, as I speak right now.
REPORTER: Now, they're technically not supposed to be there, are they?
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: Technically, but they don't have no place to go.
As the head of St Bernard's local church, Pastor Bruce Davenport has returned to help the few dozen needy people who've returned to the only shelter they know. But with no power or water, life here is very different from the predominantly wealthy white suburbs less than a few kilometres away.
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: You take the French Quarter and I bet you, I guarantee you that they have hot water, they have food, they have lights, they got all of the luxury. Just look around you and see how much luxury we have.
REPORTER: So do you think that they're trying to cut down the black population in New Orleans?
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: They will cut it down. They ain't trying to cut it down, they will cut it down, they will cut it down, because they figure if they cut it down then the city will be that much better, that's what they figure.
In the past city developers have converted poor housing projects into pricey, new, private apartment blocks. Pastor Davenport fears that's what's going to happen here.
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: When they tore down the St Thomas project they put condos up. So you tore our projects down and you put condos up and you didn't let us live in them.
REPORTER: Now, that's what a lot of people are suspicious that will happen again, isn't that right?
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: That's what they're afraid of. That's what they're afraid of and this area's a good area, it's the Gentilly area, so they know good and well when they start putting houses up here it would be out of our reach, and that's another thing that's going to spark racial tension, because the blacks won't be able to afford the apartments.
The St Bernard housing project isn't the only public housing which might be up for grabs. Just down the road is what's called the Iberville project. It also housed thousands of low-income black families who are also banned from returning. Located just a few blocks from the French Quarter, many black community leaders suspect that pressure from real estate developers is behind the delay in bringing residents back here to live.
MALIK RAHIM, BLACK COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: It's that golden cow. It's right by the French Quarter, it's right by Canal Street. They know that if they could take that, oh, they've got it made.
Black Community activist Malik Rahim has no doubts that there is a deliberate plan to prevent much of the city's black population from returning.
MALIK RAHIM: It's blatant. Why? Because they want to take the 9th Ward, they want to make sure that if it is back, if they do rebuild, they gonna rebuild - it ain't gonna be for poor people and I know it won't be for blacks. That's why we are back there.
REPORTER: But what do you say to people that say that you're paranoid, you know?
MALIK RAHIM: Then come down here and see the reality of it. If I'm paranoid, come down here and prove it, but if what I'm saying is real, is truthful, then come down here and do something about the injustice that's being perpetuated by these racists, by these plantation syndicates in this city.
Malik Rahim is all too familiar with the African-American political struggle in New Orleans. As a member of the radical Black Panther movement he was arrested 35 years ago for protesting outside poor black housing projects. He says the rage he felt back then was nothing compared to what he feels since Hurricane Katrina.
MALIK RAHIM: All of these warehouses that you see back here could have been used to house people in.
He took me to the bridge where black residents were prevented from crossing into white neighbourhoods when fleeing the rising floodwaters.
MALIK RAHIM: You couldn't cross that street if you was African-American.
REPORTER: This street right here?
MALIK RAHIM: Right here. You couldn't cross that street if you was African-American. They had police cars across both of those streets, going either way. They had police cars sitting there and if you went across that street, or if you tried to, they would literally shoot in the air at you.
For Malik the authorities' response to Katrina showed their true colours.
MALIK RAHIM: We had black doctors from Atlanta that was trying to come in here to bring us medical supplies and they help us open up a clinic and was turned around. Now, if you could turn around black doctors and turn around medicine then what you saying is that the people who they were going to supply those service for, don't even deserve to live.
The incident with the black doctors being turned away forced Malik into action. He formed a grass roots community collective to help the poor and most vulnerable citizens of New Orleans. It was named Common Ground.
MALIK RAHIM: I think Common Ground has stopped this city from breaking into a race riot, from the very beginning, from the offset. Listen, we have only been in existence since September 5 and since September 5 we have served over 40,000 people. That's without the Government support, Red Cross, Salvation Army - without any of their support, we have served over 40,000 people.
COMMON GROUND VOLUNTEER: Are six buckets ready that can get the bleach in them? What you're going to be doing is just, sort of, scrubbing it down. Be really hard with bleach water. We want to get two coats on today, so on, dry it...
In just a few months the Common Ground collective has grown into a community workforce with over 800 volunteers, mostly young, white college students.
They are repairing structurally-sound homes and set up medical clinics for residents who want to return. But as the collective has grown and gained more publicity Malik says the gated white community across the road from his house has tried to close him down.
MALIK RAHIM: Main Street - Main Street straight from Algiers Point came and wanted to close us down from doing distribution in my house that we've been on for 30 years. Wanted to close us down because they said that they can't sell their lots because we was providing service, and they surrounded us and the only reason that they've put this gate up is because of the fact it's too black.
As darkness falls on the 9th Ward the curfew and the threat of being shot comes into force. Most residents have already left but on one street a hard core of people has stayed on.
MOMMMA D: I say the same thing to them that I said to everybody else - roaches and black folk here to stay. They've tried everything they can to exterminate both and we're still here.
Holding court in her front yard is Momma D. A well-known black community identity in New Orleans, she stayed at her house, helping those in need throughout the Hurricane and its aftermath. Now she's on a new mission - to get her people home.
MOMMA D: Spread the word, for sure, to New Orleans that they need to come home. There's a statement that needs to be made to the sick, demented, immoral, cruel, that thinks that they going to eliminate a population of people.
Tonight a group of black students from Mississippi has come to receive Momma D's advice. They plan to travel throughout the southern US in an effort to track down former residents and encourage them to return before it's too late.
MOMMA D: You all need to stay strong because whatever happens to New Orleans, trust me, is going to happen to every major metropolitan in America, because where we are. If they get away with this here, they can't call it Katrina but they can call it something and Houston is going to be the race war, and everywhere they're going to give it a name.
Although the authorities responsible for New Orleans' rebirth are confident that the city's unique racial and cultural mix will be maintained, it's clear that the suspicion and rage amongst the city's black community is gathering pace at a rate which has taken many by surprise.
With lingering resentment about their history as slaves, the black community see their future in New Orleans as the touchstone for race relations across the nation.
MALIK RAHIM: Until we deal with that racism - until we truly deal with it - New Orleans is going to always be an open sore to this nation, but if we deal with it and we can heal it in New Orleans, we can heal it everywhere else.
These jazz funeral processions are an integral part of life in New Orleans. This one is to pay tribute to those who lost their lives during and after Hurricane Katrina. It's an upbeat affair but there's very little to celebrate here.
Almost six months after Katrina's devastation there's a widespread fear that the city will never be the same again, that city authorities don't want poor black residents back in the reconstructed New Orleans.
MALIK RAHIM: It's a reality - it's not no fear, it's a blatant reality. That's all they are concerned about, is property. Human life don't mean a damn thing in New Orleans.
Before Katrina the city's Lower 9th Ward district was home to 14,000 families, most of them poor and black. Unlike New Orleans' wealthier suburbs, here there's still no power, no water and no rebuilding, five months after Katrina. In fact, the residents of the Lower 9th Ward are struggling for what they see as the very survival of their suburb.
CROWD CHANT: No demolition! No demolition! No demolition!
The focus of this demonstration outside City hall is to stop the City Council demolishing any more homes in the Lower 9th Ward.
MONIQUE COOK, LOWER 9TH WARD RESIDENT: I grew up in the Lower 9th Ward and I will not stand to have any homes demolished. I think it's unfair and it's a conspiracy.
Not only have residents been banned from returning, the City Council has proposed a system of compulsory acquisition for homes they want to demolish. Under the law of Eminent Domain, the Council says it has the right to buy homes and land without the owners' consent.
CYNTHIA WILLARD-LEWIS, LOCAL COUNCILLOR: We can come together and say, "This is wrong!"
Suspecting a conspiracy to keep them away for good, residents took their fight to the courts.
CYNTHIA WILLARD-LEWIS: We can go to the courts as a refuge and a haven to seek justice that in this battle for restoration it is not left to the executive branch of government that has kept electricity out, water out, blue roofs out, FEMA trailers out, Red Cross out, everything out...
Last month residents were encouraged by the fact that they'd won a temporary restraining order against any further demolition, but as today's demonstration is wrapping up a new crisis erupts.
ISHMAEL MOHAMMED, LAWYER: We have a...we have a... ..we have a resident on the phone, we have a resident on the phone right now - she's watching them at Galvez and Rene bulldozing a home in violation of the restraining order that we already have against any bulldozing going on in the Lower 9th Ward.
Activists, organisers, our students, we need to get down there now. Lawyers, we need to get to court.
15 minutes later residents, lawyers and activists converge on the city work team bulldozing in the Lower 9th Ward.
The workers claim that they've simply been told by city officials to clear rubble from the sidewalks, but the crowd will have none of it.
MAN: We will - we will move the people. Just get your dozers to stop. Ain't no danger as long as they stop. Just outside of the work zone. Ain't no work happening, right?
The bulldozing work is being supervised by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the same authority which was in charge of New Orleans' doomed levy system. When an Army Corp official arrives he's quickly swamped by protesters.
ARMY OFFICAL: There is no demolition down here and none set to be down here any time in the future, right now.
REPORTER: But what about when there is a house in the street, sir? Is that considered demolition...
ARMY OFFICAL: No comment. ..
REPORTER: or street cleaning?
ARMY OFFICAL: It's considered debris by the City and that is not on the agenda yet, either.
REPORTER: It's against the court order, is that correct?
ARMY OFFICAL: I have no comment.
PROTESTER 1: It's not debris! These are people's homes! Shame on you!
Quickly overwhelmed by protesters the work site is slowly closed down and the lawyers swing into action.
TRACIE WASHINGTON, LAWYER: They are in violation of a court order. You know, we've got the film, now. Are they moving out? What are they doing? What are they doing? Are they leaving? They're leaving, they're leaving.
Just a few blocks away from where the bulldozers were stopped, Byron Le France is cleaning up his home. His first opportunity to come back and inspect the damage was in early December. At that time, he says, he was almost shot outside his own home.
BYRON LE FRANCE, LOWER 9TH WARD RESIDENT: Well, my daddy was right here with me. We was right here in my yard. A lady National Guard and a man National Guard came over here harassing me, pulled a gun, pulled a AK47 rifle out and turned it at me to shoot me. I'm not bullshitting you. I grabbed a gun that I had, my wife went and grabbed a gun that we had in the house but by the time that happened my Daddy said, "Don't start nothing, go get their superiors."
By the time Byron was allowed into his house there was nothing left to salvage, but it is structurally sound. He spent over a month stripping his walls and cleaning the mud and mould plastered throughout his home. With no help from the government he's used his savings to clean up his and his father's house.
BYRON LE FRANCE: I mean, I put $2,300 on this one and $2,300 on his - that's about a good $6,000 right there for two houses.
REPORTER: And where does that money come from? Insurance?
BYRON LE FRANCE: Out of my pocket.
REPORTER: Out of your pocket?
BYRON LE FRANCE: Out of my pocket, out of my pocket. I haven't got a lick from my insurance company yet.
REPORTER: What about the city government? Have they helped you?
BYRON LE FRANCE: Never! As a matter of fact we have more family down here than anything and we're sticking together and that's basically what we're doing, sticking together, and if you don't you're going to be out in the cold.
AUGUST LE FRANCE: You know, it's so close to what you call Bourbon Street...
Byron's father, August, who's lived in the Lower 9th Ward all his life, is convinced the city government wants to turn over the suburb to developers.
AUGUST LE FRANCE: They call this, a long time ago when I was a kid, coming up, this was 'trash-land', and they sold it for little or nothing and now it's a rich-land, you know, for tourists. They want to put, like, an airport back up in here, and...
With no essential services to the suburb and the threat that if they're found by police in their homes after the night-time curfew they'll be shot, residents like Byron have to leave for temporary shelter outside the city every night.
BYRON LE FRANCE: Everybody wants to come home, it's just that we can't come home because the government is trying to keep us away from home. You all ain't seen nothing.
The body of August's best friend was only found a month ago.
AUGUST LE FRANCE: You see that house right over there, with the black roof on it? That's were they found that man, a month ago. Now, how they were searching for bodies and they're still finding bodies down here. What's going on? What are the city officials doing? What is your government doing? What are your President doing? And they're still finding bodies. What, they don't care about people down here?
WOMAN: The National Guard stopped me and I had to go and get a colonel from across the river to escort me to my own house, but after that...
BYRON LE FRANCE: They tried to shoot me and my father right in front of my house, baby!
Every few days Byron and his father attend a neighbourhood street meeting in the Lower 9th Ward. This is the only chance residents have here to vent their feelings and plan their protest action.
RESIDENT: They're saying we're going to assume the financial responsibility of tearing it down, or what? Are they saying we're going to take over that land and pay the people off? Do you know what? Are they going to pay the people off for the land or are they just going to take it? I want to know.
What particularly galls these residents is that most of them own their homes. In fact, the Lower 9th Ward district of New Orleans has the highest proportion of black home-ownership in America.
AUGUST LE FRANCE: People here are property owners and pay taxes on their land, and you mean to tell me they can't come back to their land! This is communism.
In some of the city's wealthier suburbs residents already use trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Agency, FEMA, as temporary shelter while their homes are repaired. In fact, throughout the city thousands of empty trailers are being stored on vacant lots, but in the Lower 9th Ward not a single trailer has been handed over. Residents now fear that with no permanent population the law of Eminent Domain will be used to get rid of them.
WOMAN: Any area of the city of New Orleans that is sparsely populated they are going to want to use the Eminent Domain to take over the properties. You have to repopulate. If you own the land, put in for a FEMA trailer. How would they feel if 5,000 people in the Lower 9th Ward called up tonight and said, "I want a trailer on my property, right now"?
At City Hall the man whom most residents blame for their misery, Mayor Ray Nagin, says there's no plan to abandon New Orleans' poor black communities.
RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS MAYOR: We are rebuilding the city. We're undoing what Katrina did. We're starting with the areas that had little flooding or no flooding and then we're working towards the river and we're moving out as utilities become available.
Beyond explaining that the hardest-hit communities will take the longest to repair, Mayor Nagin seems to have few details about the repopulation of New Orleans' poor black suburbs and housing projects.
RAY NAGIN: Now the issue is, what other services are going to be out there? Grocery stores, you know, Wal-Marts, you name it - and every individual has to make the decision on what's best for them.
REPORTER: What plans do you have for the Lower 9th Ward?
RAY NAGIN: What plans? Ah, trying to deal with this lawsuit, right now.
REPORTER: But, I mean, is there a vision there, I mean, a vision for the future? These people seem to have a lot of concerns.
RAY NAGIN: I'm not just focused on the 9th Ward. I mean, that seems to be the sexy thing that you guys are really, you know, turned on by. I'm working with the entire city and there's three or four different distinct areas that had the most devastation. The 9th Ward happens to be one. New Orleans East, around the London Avenue Canal and the 17th Street Canal. Those are the areas that will probably require the most resources in this rebuild.
At public celebrations like New Year's Eve, Nagin's brash style, once a vote-winner, now gets a decidedly mixed response.
RAY NAGIN: Let me just say "thank you" to all of you for being out here.
PROTESTER: Why don't you quit, resign? You've no right to be here.
RAY NAGIN: Thank you so much for being here.
With public anger at Nagin growing louder the Mayor has been carefully stage-managing his appearances, like this inter-faith service, where he's keen to promote his black credentials.
RAY NAGIN: And all of you folk that are thinking this is an opportunity for you to kind of do something different and take control of this city, I got news for you, too - this is our city and it's going to continue to be our city and we're not going backwards, we're going forwards - together, and put them rocks down, thank you.
Although much of the public resentment has been directed at Nagin, the State's Governor, Kathleen Blanco, is also under intense scrutiny. According to her Deputy, Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, there is a commitment from state authorities to maintain the racial mix, but helping poor blacks will need federal dollars.
MITCH LANDRIEU, LOUISIANE LT. GOVERNOR: The commitment has to be from the leadership that we really want to invite diversity back so that when we go to Congress and you ask them for incentives you make sure you get tax incentives to re-build moderate to low income housing as well as those individuals that have the ability to pay on their own.
You have good planning so that when you deal with land use you make sure that the city is open, from a zoning perspective. That's a commitment that the leaders have to make based on response to the constituents that we have.
I know those of us that are in power now, those of us that seek to be in power in the future, are committed to that particular idea.
Despite the commitment to diversity, the city hardly seems in a rush to bring back its poorest citizens. In much of the inner city relatively undamaged public housing projects lie abandoned, with no essential services. At the St Bernard housing project, despite the hardships some people are still living here, in defiance of the law.
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: We still got people living in this area. You can see people walking around here, as I speak right now.
REPORTER: Now, they're technically not supposed to be there, are they?
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: Technically, but they don't have no place to go.
As the head of St Bernard's local church, Pastor Bruce Davenport has returned to help the few dozen needy people who've returned to the only shelter they know. But with no power or water, life here is very different from the predominantly wealthy white suburbs less than a few kilometres away.
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: You take the French Quarter and I bet you, I guarantee you that they have hot water, they have food, they have lights, they got all of the luxury. Just look around you and see how much luxury we have.
REPORTER: So do you think that they're trying to cut down the black population in New Orleans?
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: They will cut it down. They ain't trying to cut it down, they will cut it down, they will cut it down, because they figure if they cut it down then the city will be that much better, that's what they figure.
In the past city developers have converted poor housing projects into pricey, new, private apartment blocks. Pastor Davenport fears that's what's going to happen here.
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: When they tore down the St Thomas project they put condos up. So you tore our projects down and you put condos up and you didn't let us live in them.
REPORTER: Now, that's what a lot of people are suspicious that will happen again, isn't that right?
PASTOR BRUCE DAVENPORT: That's what they're afraid of. That's what they're afraid of and this area's a good area, it's the Gentilly area, so they know good and well when they start putting houses up here it would be out of our reach, and that's another thing that's going to spark racial tension, because the blacks won't be able to afford the apartments.
The St Bernard housing project isn't the only public housing which might be up for grabs. Just down the road is what's called the Iberville project. It also housed thousands of low-income black families who are also banned from returning. Located just a few blocks from the French Quarter, many black community leaders suspect that pressure from real estate developers is behind the delay in bringing residents back here to live.
MALIK RAHIM, BLACK COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: It's that golden cow. It's right by the French Quarter, it's right by Canal Street. They know that if they could take that, oh, they've got it made.
Black Community activist Malik Rahim has no doubts that there is a deliberate plan to prevent much of the city's black population from returning.
MALIK RAHIM: It's blatant. Why? Because they want to take the 9th Ward, they want to make sure that if it is back, if they do rebuild, they gonna rebuild - it ain't gonna be for poor people and I know it won't be for blacks. That's why we are back there.
REPORTER: But what do you say to people that say that you're paranoid, you know?
MALIK RAHIM: Then come down here and see the reality of it. If I'm paranoid, come down here and prove it, but if what I'm saying is real, is truthful, then come down here and do something about the injustice that's being perpetuated by these racists, by these plantation syndicates in this city.
Malik Rahim is all too familiar with the African-American political struggle in New Orleans. As a member of the radical Black Panther movement he was arrested 35 years ago for protesting outside poor black housing projects. He says the rage he felt back then was nothing compared to what he feels since Hurricane Katrina.
MALIK RAHIM: All of these warehouses that you see back here could have been used to house people in.
He took me to the bridge where black residents were prevented from crossing into white neighbourhoods when fleeing the rising floodwaters.
MALIK RAHIM: You couldn't cross that street if you was African-American.
REPORTER: This street right here?
MALIK RAHIM: Right here. You couldn't cross that street if you was African-American. They had police cars across both of those streets, going either way. They had police cars sitting there and if you went across that street, or if you tried to, they would literally shoot in the air at you.
For Malik the authorities' response to Katrina showed their true colours.
MALIK RAHIM: We had black doctors from Atlanta that was trying to come in here to bring us medical supplies and they help us open up a clinic and was turned around. Now, if you could turn around black doctors and turn around medicine then what you saying is that the people who they were going to supply those service for, don't even deserve to live.
The incident with the black doctors being turned away forced Malik into action. He formed a grass roots community collective to help the poor and most vulnerable citizens of New Orleans. It was named Common Ground.
MALIK RAHIM: I think Common Ground has stopped this city from breaking into a race riot, from the very beginning, from the offset. Listen, we have only been in existence since September 5 and since September 5 we have served over 40,000 people. That's without the Government support, Red Cross, Salvation Army - without any of their support, we have served over 40,000 people.
COMMON GROUND VOLUNTEER: Are six buckets ready that can get the bleach in them? What you're going to be doing is just, sort of, scrubbing it down. Be really hard with bleach water. We want to get two coats on today, so on, dry it...
In just a few months the Common Ground collective has grown into a community workforce with over 800 volunteers, mostly young, white college students.
They are repairing structurally-sound homes and set up medical clinics for residents who want to return. But as the collective has grown and gained more publicity Malik says the gated white community across the road from his house has tried to close him down.
MALIK RAHIM: Main Street - Main Street straight from Algiers Point came and wanted to close us down from doing distribution in my house that we've been on for 30 years. Wanted to close us down because they said that they can't sell their lots because we was providing service, and they surrounded us and the only reason that they've put this gate up is because of the fact it's too black.
As darkness falls on the 9th Ward the curfew and the threat of being shot comes into force. Most residents have already left but on one street a hard core of people has stayed on.
MOMMMA D: I say the same thing to them that I said to everybody else - roaches and black folk here to stay. They've tried everything they can to exterminate both and we're still here.
Holding court in her front yard is Momma D. A well-known black community identity in New Orleans, she stayed at her house, helping those in need throughout the Hurricane and its aftermath. Now she's on a new mission - to get her people home.
MOMMA D: Spread the word, for sure, to New Orleans that they need to come home. There's a statement that needs to be made to the sick, demented, immoral, cruel, that thinks that they going to eliminate a population of people.
Tonight a group of black students from Mississippi has come to receive Momma D's advice. They plan to travel throughout the southern US in an effort to track down former residents and encourage them to return before it's too late.
MOMMA D: You all need to stay strong because whatever happens to New Orleans, trust me, is going to happen to every major metropolitan in America, because where we are. If they get away with this here, they can't call it Katrina but they can call it something and Houston is going to be the race war, and everywhere they're going to give it a name.
Although the authorities responsible for New Orleans' rebirth are confident that the city's unique racial and cultural mix will be maintained, it's clear that the suspicion and rage amongst the city's black community is gathering pace at a rate which has taken many by surprise.
With lingering resentment about their history as slaves, the black community see their future in New Orleans as the touchstone for race relations across the nation.
MALIK RAHIM: Until we deal with that racism - until we truly deal with it - New Orleans is going to always be an open sore to this nation, but if we deal with it and we can heal it in New Orleans, we can heal it everywhere else.