After Katrina, trying to get back to the city was awful for Black people and we still haven’t fully recovered. - Beverly Wright

Racism holds everybody back. So, while people make the decision that people who work in hotels and restaurants really don’t need a livable wage because they’re black, and we don’t have to pay black people a lot, what they are doing is they are robbing themselves of a decent tax base. They are producing citizens who can’t buy health insurance, putting a drain on the city. And so the racism that drives this belief that you can treat some human beings less than others, in the end catches up with all of us because it lowers the standard of living for everybody. And I think that’s what we have been dealing with in the city of New Orleans.

history of human slavery spawned environmental racism in the United States.

There was a lot of discrimination against African-Americans with apartments. You would go there to rent, you’d call, and it was available, and when you got there it wasn’t. And then later you found out there were rental units, but they were not renting to us. They had met their quota of African-Americans.