Books by Jerry W. Ward  Jr.

Trouble the Water (1997) / Black Southern Voices (1992) / The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (2008)  / The Katrina Papers

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The Katrina Papers a Journal of Trauma and Recovery

By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

The Katrina Papers is not your average memoir. It is a fusion of many kinds of writing, including intellectual autobiography, personal narrative, political/cultural analysis, spiritual journal, literary history, and poetry. Though it is the record of one man's experience of Hurricane Katrina, it is a record that is fully a part of his life and work as a scholar, political activist, and professor.  The Katrina Papers provides space not only for the traumatic events but also for ruminations on authors such as Richard Wright and theorists like Deleuze and Guattarri. The result is a complex though thoroughly accessible book. The struggle with form—the search for a medium proper to the complex social, personal, and political ramifications of an event unprecedented in this scholar's life and in American social history—lies at the very heart of The Katrina Papers. It depicts an enigmatic and multi-stranded world view which takes the local as its nexus for understanding the global.  It resists the temptation to simplify or clarify when simplification and clarification are not possible. Ward's narrative is, at times, very direct, but he always refuses to simplify the complex emotional and spiritual volatility of the process and the historical moment that he is witnessing. The end result is an honesty that is both pedagogical and inspiring.—Hank Lazer

The Katrina Papers, by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. $18.95

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Dear Jerry,
 
I received my copy of The Katrina Papers this past weekend. I had to order it directly from UNO Press. This is a formidable volume! You write with such eloquence, passion, insight, and power. As survivor and raconteur of Katrina's devastation, you give the reader your reflections on this event; you also provide us with informed commentaries about a broad variety of other issues that attract your attention and the people with whom you interact. As a student of politics, I guess I am just overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of your critical observations. Reading this volume and The Richard Wright Encyclopedia, I can comprehend not only the centrality of Richard Wright to your scholarly project, but I also can grasp your own intellectual power and clear vision. For example, your critique of Robert Lashley' rant about Wright's LAWD TODAY is the model of the art of critique. Marvelous!
 
Thanks for your generous comment on my paper on Robeson and Wright. I continue to read both of your books. As always, Floyd

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from THE KATRINA PAPERS

Wednesday, May 31, 2006—June 2, 2006

Wednesday, May 31, 2006: REBIRTH: PEOPLE, PLACES, AND CULTURE IN NEW ORLEANS

The three-day conference sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Tulane University (Dillard, Xavier, Loyola and the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans are co-sponsors) began yesterday with pre-conference field sessions. One session involved dinner, drinks, and music at selected restaurants, bars, and clubs. In the official letter, dated May 3, 2006, I received from President Scott Cowan of Tulane and President Richard Moe of the Trust, the gentlemen mentioned the purpose was "[t]o energize and elevate the discussion about the important role arts and culture play in the reconstruction effort." I volunteered to serve on a panel because I wanted to be sure that the "people" component of "culture" did not get short shrift.

This morning, President Scott Cowen opened the day's meetings very effectively; his speech was crisp, concise, and economic. . There was special warmth in his introduction of Irvin Mayfield. Irvin, accompanied by Ronald Markham (a mechanical engineer who is also a musician), set a very polished tone for the conference with his discussion of the blues and jazz, his playing of a blues, followed by his version of "Yesterday" by the Beatles, followed by a musical demonstration of "the first line" (march to the cemetery, the dirge) and "the second line" (every expanding celebratory return from the cemetery).

The last selection underscored his mentioning that his father, who drowned in the flooding of the city, had given him the means to deal with such a tragedy: jazz. Irvin was at his elegant and eloquent best as he prepared the ears of the invitation only audience. Irvin was very careful in placing his explanations and his playing within the context of American democracy. After his performance, President Cowan introduced Oliver Thomas, councilman-at-large, who filled in for Mayor Nagin, and Richard Moe.

Moe focused on the work of the Trust with places and cultures. His remarks provided a good opening for Jack Davis, publisher of the Hartford Courant, to introduce those who served on the "What Makes Community?" panel: Irvin Mayfield, Tom Piazza, and Jerry Ward.

Tom read from his prepared remarks about community. He said something about black and white that sent up the red flag regarding binary discourses. Had I not early this morning read the phrase "media malfeasance" regarding the coverage of the Katrina disaster? I have no prepared remarks. I trust improvising. When Davis asked for my comments, I began by suggesting that Irvin and Tom were very much a part of my community in the city. I noted Irvin's alluding to the blues, to the classic definition provided by Ralph Ellison—running one's finger over the jagged grain of experience.

I added "catching splinters and healing from the injury." I framed the remainder of my remarks with a quotation from THE KATRINA PAPERS: "Those of us who have made our beds in New Orleans have learned to sleep soundly on the surface of water." Community is about people being interdependent. It consists of relatives, friends who have returned to the city and friends who are still absent, friends and colleagues at Dillard University. It is about our social communion. Rituals are important.

I mention Dave Brinks and his efforts to reunite writers and artists, the October resuscitation of the 17 Poets Series at the Gold Mine Saloon; I mention the March 6 taping by PBS of a special reading in the series. I wanted the audience to know about the most democratic venue for arts in the city. I want them to note that kind of human spirit that Dave nurtures.

It is important for us not to get bogged down by the classic oppositions of black and white. I remind the audience that the coverage of Katrina in the first weeks of September 2005 would lead to the idea that no Latinos/Latinas, no Vietnamese, no Greek-Americans, no Asian-Americans inhabited the city. The media invoked the classic and reductive black/white template, a template that cherishes the black as victim. This habit is not to be tolerated. It will not serve us well in the future.

The audience has a special interest in restaurants and cuisine. I could not resist mentioning that Pampy's on North Broad may lose all of it former pretense to elegance and become an upscale fast-food joint. I emphasize that I am replaying Mr. "Pampy" Barre's remarks on a NPR program. Restaurants have been special sites for eating, for conversations, for political planning. That must be remembered. Food and politics are old friends. I do hope the audience will recall the political implications of what they ate during the pre-conference field sessions.

To recreate a sense of community that will support the rebirth of culture, we must have respect for the multilayered cultures of the city. We can have no respect if we turn our backs on the facts of class tension in the city, the enormous distance between the rich and the poor. Someone mentioned the Aspen Institute during the opening session. I picked that up by noting that those who ski in Aspen may have absolutely no perspective on the lives of successful people, poor and middle class, who lived in the much maligned Ninth Ward.

I recounted the attitude of Gentilly Civic Improvement Association residents to a story about having raised five children in the Ninth Ward. Their negative dismissal led me to believe they would willingly feed rat poison to everyone who formerly live in the St. Bernard Project. This genteel audience must hear something that is often unspoken as New Orleans puts on a daily Mardi Gras face for the sake of tourism.

Tourism is a vital part of the New Orleans economy, for the majority of the city's revenue comes from tourism. Nevertheless, I feel a moral obligation to end my remarks with a strong assertion. Rebirth demands Honesty, an honesty that may never have existed in New Orleans or in America.

WE MUST STOP DOING WHITEFACE FOR TOURISTS. THAT KIND OF MINSTRELSY WILL NOT AID THE RECOVERY PROCESS.

Irvin followed my remarks with a nicely packaged patriotic message. Jazz teaches us that democracy is not easy, that we are always in struggle. The life of community depends on constant struggle. I confess that what Irving actually said is now foggy in my memory. I was busy controlling the internal flames my comments had started. I don't clearly remember what Tom said either . When Tom was reading, I was pouring gasoline on the smoldering coals of what I planned to say.

I take a break after our panel and have coffee with Tom. He persuades me that I should hear First Lady Laura Bush's keynote address at 11:30. I return to Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, to witness the address. I catch the end of the second panel on "Rebirth of New Orleans' Historic Neighborhoods: Coming HOME AGAIN!" Kevin Mercadel of the National Trust, New Orleans Office, is saying something important about sites and creativity, the shotgun house and jazz.

I think of where I write and how the quality of writing is affected. What I write in a hotel room has a very different flavor from what I write in my Vicksburg apartment or on the campus of a university where I am a guest. The writing I did at home prior to Katrina was utterly different. (more)

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After the Hurricanes                  (for the radical writers in New Orleans) By Jerry W. Ward, Jr. Poverty is not devoid of its dignity, Nor is the Ninth Ward a fractured mirror For minor gods to behold factitious laughter. Beware of aliens, of inside agitators, of vultures Who would batten on grief and broken hearts, Kidnap our cultures and dreams, wondrously aged, Transport and auction them for abuse. Against such tragedy within tragedy we stand In solidarity for life, for liberty, for return to happiness. Saints and soldiers creative Be not blindly meditative, Seeking at noon An impossible drinking gourd. Hope is not devoid of its deceit, Nor immune to misleading into swamps. Careful.  Don’t move left. Quicksand be there. Don’t move right.  Gators will kiss you. Learn from the fugitive enslaved. Befriend moccasins. Capture and coffle the cruel, The arrogant, the mammon cold. Send them on middle passages into the blues. October 19, 2005 posted 21 October 2005

Check out these TKP files as well -- The Katrina Papers  Portrait of a Suicide/Death in Yellow Flooding  Dreamers Die Young; Dreams Die Eventually

 Returning to the Sources  / Imprisonment in Holding Cells at Tulane and Broad

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Books by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. The Katrina Papers, by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. $18.95  /  The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (2008)

 The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (2008) is a marvelous resource! It's not like any encyclopedia I've seen before. Already, I have spent hours reading through the various entries. So much is there: people, themes, issues, events, bibliographies, etc., related to Wright. Yours is a monumental contribution! The more I read Wright (and about him), the more I am amazed at the depth and breadth of his work and its impact on the worlds of literature, philosophy, politics, sociology, history, psychology, etc. He was formidable! Floyd W. Hayes

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posted 2 November 2008