If you hang out long enough in the Lower Ninth Ward, you're bound to come into contact with Mack, who has created the Lower Ninth Ward Village, a gathering, community and workspace in the area.
Check out this piece with Jimmy Carter in the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans in general. You'll see Mack and the Village (green building) one minute and 15 seconds into the video. Mack's in the hat, thanking Carter for coming by. Then, read Ariane's thoughts below:
Ariane's thoughts:
As we sit glued to the TV, just like millions of Americans, my thoughts turn to a conversation I had with a neighbor late Saturday night.
Standing under the streetlight in front of my home in Holy Cross, my neighbor Mack and I tried to soothe each other's nerves. Like me, Mack was prepared to stay. He wanted to be able to help rescue our neighbors if the Lower Nine flooded again. But after hearing Mayor Ray Nagin say the storm had veered east, had grown to a Category 5 and was "The Mother of ALL Storms," Mack, and I, decided it best to leave.
We both figured the Mayor was exaggerating, and thank God he was, but we didn't want to stick around to find out first hand.
Even though Mack knew it was time to go, he didn't want to. He feared that he wouldn't be able to get back into the city, that we'd be prohibited from entering the Lower Nine for weeks or even months. (The
Lower Ninth Ward was the last area of New Orleans to reopen after Katrina. It wasn't until May 2006, a good nine months after the storm, that residents were allowed to do more than "look and leave.")
To help convince Mack to leave, and to ensure that he'd be able to return, I gave him a handful of plastic ID sleeves along with shirt-pocket clips to make any type of badge he deemed necessary to get past the road blocks and into the neighborhood.
Mack wasn't always a neighborhood leader. He has a past, a past that today gives him the fortitude and the authority to convince people that by working together, we can do more than survive. We can thrive.
He preaches unity in the Lower Nine. We must bridge the historical divide that has kept so many black and white residents divided. Lower Nine and Holy Cross must work together, he preaches, paraphrasing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., otherwise we perish as fools.
Like so many other people, myself included, Mack was riddled with anger, frustration and depression in the months following Katrina. The lack of government response made him bitter. In the grips of this rage against the system, he had a vision: "Stop waiting on the government to help. They're not going to. Step up and do it yourself."
Today, Mack tells us, "We are the ones we've been waiting for."
For the past year or so, Mack has been working with neighbors and volunteers to rebuild a warehouse as a community center. He's named it the Village because, like Hillary Clinton's book proclaims, it takes a village.
Mack and I hugged about a dozen times before we parted ways. I was so afraid it'd be months before we meet again, I didn't want to let him go.
Standing under that streetlight, we made a pact: Whatever happens, we will return, and we will rebuild.
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