Gumbo on the Road - The Finale (A-Town STOMP!)

We finally made it to Atlanta. Thanks to our great time yesterday, we were able to make it through the South in one night. Making our way through towns like Tyler, TX, Chunky, MS and Leeds, AL in between major cities like Dallas, Shreveport, Pearl, Vicksburg, Jackson and Tuscaloosa.

I don't have a lot of pics since I missed most of the scenic sights driving so I'll just share what I have with some thoughts afterwards.

The road scenery in Canton, TX. For the most part, the roads were much greener today than driving through the deserts, especially driving through the forests of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

You know the dreaded feeling of compromising your beliefs to get by?  Today did that with eating McDonald's . My pride got clogged like my arteries but it was better than starving. 

The Shreveport Water Tower. Closest border crossing picture I got all trip since I was driving for most of them.

The Independence Bowl in Shreveport. 

Stepping outside in Brandon, Mississippi, we were greeted by a nice dose of sauna-like humidity. Believe it or not, it was actually a relief from the dry heat we felt in Texas. Nothing compares to the best sight of perhaps the whole trip.

Crossing the Louisiana-Mississippi border means getting to see the Mississippi River. We saw the Rio Grande Tuesday but this is a whole, different monster. It was wide and beautiful. Just crossing it made me feel  privileged to have seen it and imagine all the stories it could tell. Then crossing into Dixieland, we paused briefly for some quiet reflection. Mississippi's got a lot of dark history with my ancestors as does Alabama.

There was plenty of darkness going from Jackson to Tuscaloosa. Almost like you could feel the ghosts of the past mixed with a willingness to not change into the future. I felt that in Vicksburg knowing that's the city where the tide of the Civil War turned along with Gettysburg.

But same time, I was happy to find the sports connections. I passed an exit for Philadelphia, the town where 3 civil rights activists were murdered and the home of the legendary Marcus Dupree. I saw Tuscaloosa where Roll Tide is the official greeting and got gas in Leeds, birthplace of Charles Barkley. Tyler gave us the great Earl Campbell.

As I drove the last leg into Georgia listening to BIG K.R.I.T, Elzhi and Camp Lo's latest mixtapes, I realized exactly what my uncle and I have done. We finished my 1st cross country trip and I got to soak in some great wisdom/advice from him along the way. I'll save more of that from my full trip recap but as I try to sleep with these thunderstorms in the distance, I'm doing it with a smile. Praise God for this great experience and I know I'll have time to reflect on it for weeks to come.

Katrina 5 Years Later

Thanksgiving weekend 2004 - my family was in New Orleans for a day to watch the Battle of the Bands. We walked along Bourbon Street and watched a step show along with the Battle between Southern and Grambling's bands inside the Superdome - the pinnacle of Southern Black culture. With "Nolia Clap" and "Go DJ" played non-stop in the arena and surrounded by Black Greeks, it was a wonderful time.

That night we watched Black folks celebrate in downtown New Orleans. While I was dreaming of regretting that decision not to apply to Morehouse, I felt like I was getting a taste of the South that so many of us in Cali don't see.

9 months later, that memory was replaced by something else. I remember moving in my senior year of college and hearing that a hurricane was coming to the Gulf Coast. It didn't hit me just how huge this was gonna be. I remember as an 8 year old kid seeing how bad Hurricane Andrew was in Florida so I figured it would be close to that but nowhere the devastation.

Next thing I knew, we saw the Gulf Coast submerged under water. People floating in boats and standing on roofs. Houses nearly covered in water. I'll never forget seeing the chilling photo of a dead woman face down in a pool of water splashed on the front of the NY Times.

My uncle and cousin had to move to Atlanta. The Superdome became a home for the displaced. My dad's hometown was a living waterpark - with poor folks who looked like me struggling a terrible evil.

Looking back on it, I remember these feelings and the lackluster government response. It was a reality to a lot of folks that like John Edwards said, we lived in Two Americas. George Bush watching that response from Air Force One said it all - an America detached from the painful reality of the poor, working class.

(I always wondered what he was thinking. Like his reaction on 9/11)

I was so confused about my feelings of despair and anger that I wrote this blog on MySpace. I didn't want to blame the government at first but that later faded.

Katrina was indeed a hurricane of class and racial issues that this country forgot about. Those issues came up when White with supplies were called surviving and Black faces were called looters. They came up recently when we discovered that officers had the green light to shoot looters at will. It comes up when Bourbon Street and the Superdome have been rebuilt and refurnished while most of the lower wards are still in recovery mode.

And by the way, what about Mississippi and the rest of the Coast? You may hate Kanye West for what he said on the telethon but I admire him for having the balls to say what many of us were saying privately and still needs to be said. David Banner forever earned my respect for not just organizing a concert for Katrina relief, but performing this great poem on Def Poetry Jam reminding us it's not just about New Orleans.

5 Years Later, Katrina reminds me of the outpouring of love we have, the feeling of detachment when it doesn't affect you personally, and a reminder that the federal and local government show who they really care about. I think about what would my Dad have done if he were alive to it and how much he would have given.

This spring, I watched David Simon's new show "Treme" on HBO, which captures a slice of post-Katrina New Orleans for musicians. To me, it not only captures the wide range of emotions after Katrina but it's a reminder that there's resiliency in the area and there's hope. When I talked to a former coworker last year after she returned to NO, she told me the same thing. People are struggling but they aren't giving up -when others forgot about them, they show the same spirit they had beforehand.

Katrina opened my eyes a bit more and it's a bigger reason why I'm passionate about injustice.

In the worst of times, we often see the best of humanity but we leave that memory behind as we move on. Never forget the lessons we've learned and are still learning. That would be a tragedy as well.

One day I'll return and make a pilgrimage to my Dad's birthplace. Reflect and learn again from the city that showed me a great time and exposed me to a new side of my culture.

Here's a great link from the BBC on how post-Katrina New Orleans looks like.