Hundreds of New Orleans residents swelled the ranks of the march as it moved across the Mississippi River bridge in symbolic reminder of the events of Sept. 1, 2005, when working people from New Orleans, most of them Black, trying to escape from the devastation of the hurricane and abysmal conditions at the convention center, crossed the bridge only to be turned back at gunpoint by police from the municipality of Gretna on the other side. Constance Stephens came with her daughter Evelyn to participate in the bridge action. Her house in Moss Point, Mississippi, was demolished by Hurricane Katrina. “We had to come here to show our support,” she explained, as she and Evelyn gave out water to the marchers in the hot sun.

Among the most energetic participants were New Orleans teachers campaigning for the repair and reopening of public schools. “We are here to make sure that schools here open so that children can have access to the public education we have fought for,” Linda Stelly told the Militant. “Right now the only schools that are open are private charter schools,” explained Stelly, a New Orleans teacher for decades and a member of the American Federation of Teachers.

Many demonstrators saw the basic issue as that of the right of return for themselves and other displaced residents. Two days before the action it was announced that the estimated cost of rebuilding New Orleans’s levees damaged by Hurricane Katrina may triple to more than $9 billion, delaying rebuilding and leaving working-class neighborhoods without insurance coverage and vulnerable in the next hurricane season.  
 
 
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