JORDAN FLAHERTY
Flaherty is a union organizer from New Orleans and editor of Left Turn magazine. He wrote the article “Notes from Inside New Orleans,” and a series of follow-up pieces about the devastation and prospects for reconstruction in New Orleans. He is now in Tennessee.
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CURTIS MUHAMMAD
Muhammad is co-founder of Community Labor United, a coalition of groups in New Orleans. He said today: “The population of New Orleans is 67 percent black and over 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, reflecting the current demographics of hurricane survivors displaced all over the South.
“While the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the White House, and Governor Blanco attempt to regain the public’s trust by evading the question of who’s to blame, a short and long-term plan for New Orleans hurricane survivors has remained in a political vault of silence.
“Community Labor United is organizing a meeting at Southern University in Baton Rouge this weekend to ensure transparency of all funds collected on behalf of the people of New Orleans and make the priority the reintegration and the construction of places to live for displaced people, rather than casinos and hotels and condominiums…”
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TISH STRINGER
HANNAH SASSAMAN
Stringer, who teaches at Rice University in Houston, has helped establish Evacuation Radio Services. She said today: “Several days ago, the FCC gave us a license to broadcast low-power radio from the Houston Astrodome almost immediately after we filed for permission. We have 10,000 radios to distribute to the people in and around the Astrodome so that they can get crucial information.” Evacuation Radio Services is expected to be broadcasting beginning later today in Houston at 95.3 FM and web streaming at Education Radio Services.
Sassaman is program coordinator for Prometheus Radio Project, which has led in the use of low-power FM radio for communities and is providing support to the radio project in the Astrodome.
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
