So my hubs and I recently took a trip down to New Orleans.  We stopped in Memphis first and experienced our first bed and breakfast which was the best choice EVER.  We also took in Graceland and saw the outside of the Civil Rights Museum on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther Kings murder.
I must tell you that although New Orleans itself is an amazing and colorful city, we were surprised at how little the devastation of hurricane Katrina is memorialized. The lack of respect for all those lives lost is unbelievable.   There is a kind of a make shift museum inside a beautiful building that's on the main floor and the 2nd floor is a HUGE museum dedicated to all the years of Mardi Gras parades.  There are dozens of flamboyant sequined dresses some dating back to the early 1900's. Also many crowns worn by past Mardi Gras queens as well as head gear, hair  appliances and other theatrical items. It's a very cool place to go and learn about the history of this legendary party time in New Orleans.  I was captivated by the "dance cards". 🌸
So imagine how sad and unimportant I felt after first seeing a whole floor of basically nothing but news footage and a pair of pants and some street signs in the Hurricane Katrina museum.  As I wondered through it and tried to stay focussed.  I  was saddened by a couple pieces of children's clothing and a broken menorah, some old Louise Armstrong posters and then some pieces of drywall.....with writing on them.  This was the only real dramatic part for me.  A desperate man wrote out his timeline for being stuck for days in the stifling heat with little or no water.  Obviously he wanted his last days of life to be the read by someone.  Someone would surely want to know how badly he suffered.......wouldn't they?  That in the year of 2005 after decades of hurricanes and storms, this is how he and others would die, because of weak broken insufficient levees.  How can this be?  And how can it be that when soooo many poor people living in homes that would be destroyed, came to stay at the convention center because they literally had no vehicles to take them out of the water's strike zone? For days thousands would ensure thirst and hunger, rape and death in that convention center with no food or water.  Unconscionable.  Then it took months for fema campers to be delivered to these people, some still living in those campers today....12 years later.
If you go to New Orleans, the easiest and most affordable way to get around is Uber.  We asked our college age Uber driver what she remembers about hurricane Katrina since she was a lifelong citizen?  "Not much" she answered.  And sadly, she wasn't being flippant.  We asked a few people that question and got basically the same answer.  So I guess it's no surprise that the museum was a quick effort to appease some city council person and a few vacationing northerners.
I'm ashamed of how America has treated their own at times.  We have a current president that was voted into office by these same uncaring kinds.  This isn't the America I proudly wrote reports about in school.  What will the coming generations be proud enough to write about?

I am now and will always remain a kind talking northerner.