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Face to Face with Katrina SurvivorsA First Responder’s TributeBy Lemuel A. Moyé, M.D., Ph.D.
In personal terms, the book reveals to
America what decades of greed and
neglect, culminating with Hurricane
Katrina, inflicted upon the impoverished
people of the Gulf Coast communities of
the New Orleans area. While the extent of the devastation perpetrated upon the
survivors has not previously been so
thoroughly documented, nevertheless, this book remains uplifting and positive in character. Above all, it is a testament to the marvelous spirit that resides in the hearts of these poor and largely black people of the southern United States.
It also presents the generous spirit of the
people of Houston, Texas in welcoming
these survivors of the most destructive
hurricane in US history. The riveting text is buttressed by sixteen pages of dramatic photographs.
Dr. Moyé, a professor of Biostatistics at the University of Texas School of Public
Health and a medical doctor, along with
many of his colleagues, witnessed and
interacted with these great people as they
clung to hope in the wake of a natural and man-made disaster that included the
breaching of the levees and an incredibly
hostile government “rescue” response.
The survivors’ stories of life and death and heroic self-sacrifice that Dr. Moyé relates are in direct contradiction with the media depictions of the poor people of New Orleans. Dr. Moyé, himself a proud African-American man, had been led by the mass media to believe that the people he was volunteering to help would be “animalistic” and selfish. What he found was the very opposite! “The survivors operated from a compassionate and gracious strength of heart that endured this most severe of tests.”
Indeed, the book reveals the startling
depth of the “souls of black folk” in our
time quite similar to that depth of spirit
which W.E.B. DuBois discovered and
reported so eloquently in his book of that
name over one hundred years ago. Dr.
Moyé concludes his Introduction with the following observation about the Katrina survivors he encountered face to face: “It was an honor to watch, and even participate in, their reactions as they demonstrated their allegiance to family, to culture, to each other, and, in the end, to us all. This book is my tribute to them.”
Read the Author's Preface
Read the Publisher's Note
Read an excerpt from the book
Complementary Book for Education
North Carolina Review for Educators
From the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction:
[Grades 9-12, Social Studies] Dr. Moyé is a professor of biostatistics in Houston. His first-person story as a volunteer physician at the Houston Astrodome, receiving and treating the evacuees from the devastation of hurricane Katrina, is a moving account. He represents many others as the true heroes in the treatment and recovery process, chronicling their indomitable spirit as they pick up the pieces and move forward. In many cases, the story is of evacuees helping each other, even as they try to come to terms with their own losses. If positives are to come from Katrina's devastation, they must come from stories like this that show what people can accomplish with hope and perseverance. Moyé's story is engaging reading and suitable for character studies and as a human interest supplement for history and science classes. Character Education [Science]
(InfoTech Volume 2007: Issue 3, pg 20)
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