NAACP Appoints Director of New Orleans Katrina Relief Center

Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 2006 by Lindsey, Nedra

Neither a law degree, nor a successful practice protected attorney Tracie L. Washington from the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. Like others, Washington and her family fled to Texas. And like so many others, she returned to very little.

Instead of fleeing the city again, Washington will remain as the director of operations for the NAACP's New Orleans Katrina Relief Center, which opened in March.

"When I returned it was pretty desolate and I knew that a lot of public interest work needed to be done," says the New Orleans native who feared people's civil rights would be trampled. "I can't just sit back and watch people suffer."

The center will attempt to address a number of issues confronting Louisiana and the Gulf Coast states of Alabama, Mississippi and eastern Texas, including education, voting rights, housing, criminal justice matters and employment. The center is expected to be open for one year.

"We realized that these issues were not issues that would be solved overnight," says John Jackson, chief policy officer for the NAACP. "We needed some institution on the ground that could work for systemic policy changes for an extended period."

Washington is already at work. She helped lead the effort to delay the demolition of homes in the city, is addressing voting rights for those outside of the state and is trying to prevent evictions by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

When Hurricane Katrina struck, Washington was in private practice in the city's famed Garden District. But now, the Uptown law office has become a second home for her father, who was displaced from his Gentilly house near Dillard University and the London Avenue Canal Levee, which was breached as a result of the hurricane.

Washington currently lives on the second floor of her home. The first floor was destroyed by flooding. Washington has worked as an attorney for more than 16 years, focusing primarily on civil rights. She was general counsel to the New Orleans Public Schools and for the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is the transit system for the city of Austin in Texas.

"It's almost impossible to overestimate how damaged all of our institutions are," says Bill Quigley, a professor at the School of Law at Loyola University in New Orleans and co-counsel with Washington on several cases. "The fact that the NAACP is making a commitment to the Gulf Coast is a real sign of hope. We need hope and help desperately."

- Nedra Lindsey