Remembering New Orleans

By Kristina Rizga, WireTap. Posted February 27, 2006.

Two days before Hurricane Katrina blew ashore New Orleans on Aug. 29, Ebony Bolding and her mother Henrietta were cooking food all night in preparation for a block party in the Sixth Ward.

They planned to celebrate the release of Ebony's first book, Before and After North Dorgenois. Through interviews, photography and personal reflections, the book documented the good, the bad and everything in between in Ebony's block of this vibrant New Orleans neighborhood. Ebony's book, and four others written by her classmates, were the #2 best sellers (trailing Harry Potter) in New Orleans.

On the same day, four blocks down the street, Ebony's high school teacher Abram Himelstein -- who had encouraged her to write the book -- was monitoring the approaching hurricane online. Abram and his wife Shana had never left the city for storms before, and they didn't want to cancel this block party. It had taken a lot of courage for Ebony -- a shy teen from a troubled family -- to make her innermost views public. But as the day progressed and the eye of the hurricane moved right over New Orleans, Himelstein and the Boldings canceled the party, packed their cars, and left New Orleans for Houston.

Hours later Ebony's home, filled with freshly cooked food and party drinks, was submerged in water. The cars left behind on the block ended up on neighbors' rooftops. In just a few hours, the daily life that most of us take for granted -- neighbors lounging on porches, children playing in the streets, women calling kids for dinner -- was swept away by wind and water.

But thanks to Ebony and her classmates, some of the most inspiring stories from New Orleans' oldest public housing neighborhoods -- neighborhoods that rarely got attention from the media unless there was a shooting -- continue to live on inside the pages of five books published by The Neighborhood Story Project.

The Neighborhood Story Project was founded in 2004 by Abram Himelstein and Rachel Breunlin, teachers from John McDonough Senior High School in New Orleans. They felt that media representations of their students and their neighborhoods were usually one-sided, focused almost exclusively on the weaknesses of these largely low-income black communities. Himelstein and Breunlin knew their students had the aptitude and skills to write more complete, honest stories -- ones that people in predominantly white, middle-class America would otherwise miss.

Most of the books' original prints didn't survive the hurricane, but fellow teen author Ashley Nelson managed to save a disk containing the files, and the Brooklyn-based publisher Soft Skull Press recently reprinted all five volumes, with all book sale proceeds benefiting the project and its writers.

As the Gulf region recovers from the flood damage and governmental inaction, the stories from the Neighborhood Story Project live on as a testament to the endurance of the people of New Orleans. We kick off this commemorative series by talking with Abram Himelstein, cofounder of the Neighborhood Story Project, who recently returned to New Orleans. Abram spoke to AlterNet from his temporary home in the city's Seventh Ward.

Kristina Rizga: Could you tell me how the Neighborhood Story Project got started? What motivated you to do it?

Abram Himelstein: Rachel and I were teachers at the John McDonough Senior High School [in New Orleans], and we were frustrated with the stories that the media told about our school and our students' lives and our neighborhoods. We knew that there were much richer and more truthful ways of telling the stories. So, we thought of the idea of having our students tell these stories of their neighborhoods, and we thought about what would work and how to motivate them.

Social Aid and Pleasure Club Parade in New Orleans, December 2005

We got an office across from the high school, and the students started coming to us every afternoon for their last period of the day and then staying all afternoon. An important part of it for us was also that we were paying students. We weren't paying until the books were finished, but that students could envision this as their afterschool job. One of the things that happens differently for wealthy kids in America is that they have afterschool internships, and they get to do intellectual work after school and I really believe strongly that intellectual work should be a part of our lives, not just the domain of the wealthy.

Visit the Katrina Information Network for the latest on grassroots efforts to rebuild the Gulf Coast.

Kristina Rizga is the editor of WireTap, AlterNet's youth-oriented section.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Hurricane Katrina! Sign up now »