Support for Gulf Coast African Americans

A YES! board member forwarded me news that the 21st Century Foundation, a national fund with a 35-year track record of work by and for the African American community, has set up a special Hurricane Katrina Recovery Fund.

Many of the destitute people in the region are black, and many of them would have left New Orleans if they had had the resources -- or if someone had thought to provide emergency evacuation buses, vouchers for gas, or shelters out of harms way.

You've seen the images and the unspoken message that the victims, especially the black victims, of this disaster are somehow to blame. Yahoo News captions labeled a black youth wading through chest-high water with food a "looter," while two white youth, also wading through chest-high water with food, had simply managed to "find" food.

Supporting a fund that puts African Americans in charge of their own rebuilding could help with another dimension of the healing that will be needed after the waters recede and the debris is cleared away.

P.S. Some people have been adding other great suggestions for funds to support as comments to my previous post. Check them out and feel free to add your own.