The Afro American Newspaper

The Afro American Newspaper: "The vast needs of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina have prompted a perhaps unprecedented union of Baltimore area churches, businesses, community organizations, politicians and media, all united to help those who many believe were abandoned by the federal government.
Bishop Walter Scott Thomas, pastor of New Psalmist Baptist Church in West Baltimore, set 'Operation Healing: Ties That Bind' in motion after he witnessed those early horrific images of mostly Black, mostly poor people begging for food and water at the New Orleans' Superdome and Convention Center.
'I couldn't believe it. I couldn't imagine this could happen to people who looked like us, with economics like us,' said Thomas.
'The failure of a coordinated, organized effort that gave the impression that rescue was taking place ... I knew people were dying and those who were the weakest in society would suffer the most and their suffering would teach us a lesson,' he added.
Thomas immediately reached out to three other influential Baltimore pastors: Bishop John R. Bryant of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Pastor Frank M. Reid III of Bethel AME Church and Bishop Dwayne Debnam, pastor of Morningstar Baptist Church in Catonsville."