Many amazing, but not mysterious, parallels. I pray that PBS will show Fatal Flood (the american experience) this week. Read the timeline from the documentary by clicking the title of this post above. Photos from the documentary show 13,000 poor blacks trapped on a levee under guard by by armed whites and I immediately thought of the photo when I saw the civilians and prisoners on the expressway ramp outside the Superdome with the national guard around them.
The documentary is about a levee busting flood in 1927 with uncanny echoes today(especially the photos) that brought racial and class differences to a violent climax. Tens of thoudands of black prisoners and farm workers were forced at gunpoint to work day and night to shore up levees on the Mississippi, which may be why the song Aaron Neville sang Friday night, Louisiana 1927, refers to "They're trying to wash us away/They'retrying to wash us away.". When the levee broke many were swept away. Then 13,000 poor blacks were trapped on a levee without food or water further down the Mississippi and promised by a businessman that barges would come to take them to safety. The businessman's father colluded with local whites to block the rescue and only a handfull of white women and children were allowed on the barges. They feared their cheap labor would never return. A black leader was shot in the back for refusing to work a 24 hour shift, and whites and blacks armed themselves amid rising tensions.
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