At the CBC Conference, A Whirlwind of Emotions

At the CBC Conference, A Whirlwind of Emotions: "Washington Convention Center would be the first rendezvous for many black intellectual, religious, celebrity and financial heavyweights after the storm: more than 3,000 registered participants, all haunted by the pictures of those left behind -- so many of them poor, so many of them black.

But it would have been hard to prepare for just how raw emotions would be, how deep the pain over that old feeling of being last and left out, how sharp the anger and the suspicion. Could the city really be rebuilt without many of the people that Katrina washed away, as so many seem to fear? And what about the opportunity there now? For all the death and devastation, there is money to be made, jobs to be had in the rebuilding. Could they be left to outside contractors who don't even know the streets that gave birth to jazz?"
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"But there was no escaping the conference's river of unscripted Katrina moments.

"People have to have a forum to express themselves," Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson said after a workshop on rebuilding New Orleans. "They feel very deeply that there has been an injustice against the African American community. . . . There was no way to control it."

So many times last week, it was as if a levee had broken right there in the convention center."