African American Coping
Strategies in New Orleans by Philip Watson
African Americans cope with minority status in every major city in the United States. However, the situation is unique in the Big Easy.
While making up almost 70% of the population in the city, African Americans must still cope with minority status in the city of New Orleans because although they hold some power in the political realm, they hold none in the economic. They mainly use one minority coping strategy to deal with their plight. That strategy is political accommodation. African Americans have used their numbers of absolute population to vote into office African American politicians and have subsequently secured for themselves many more government jobs than Whites hold. It is clear that African Americans will have the best chance at winning political contests in New Orleans, so much so that only two non-African Americans ran in the most recent mayoral race.
The 2000 Census shows that African Americans only own
approximately one-fourth of the private firms in the city, despite the
fact that they make up 70% of the New Orleans' population.
The figures do not suggest economic accommodation strategies or new-style radical strategies. The 2000 Census shows that African Americans only own approximately one-fourth of the private firms in the city, despite their dominance in absolute number. Also, African Americans rarely employ the technique or protest or rally to effect change in the city. Although New Orleans has had its share of protests in opposition to majority oppression, activities such as riots - like those that have occurred in major areas such as Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles - tend not to happen in New Orleans.
Although it is not a
deliberate strategy, African Americans have also faced separatism - city
demographics suggest that there are strictly African American parts of
town and strictly Non-Latino White parts of town. For example, African
Americans inhabit a great deal of the area near Lee Circle and the Muse
streets (where some of the housing projects are located). Ironically, the
predominantly White areas of Uptown/Garden District and the French Quarter
sandwich this block of African American dwellings. African Americans do
not purposely separate as the Amish do. In other words, they don't use it
as a strategy, but they do live in a city that is very divided according
to race. This is called de facto segregation - there are no laws that
mandate segregation, but it still exists.
In the 1960s, a time well known for being a hotbed of civil rights activity in the country, many minorities in New Orleans attempted the civil disobedience tactics that were being used elsewhere in the United States and promulgated by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the height of the integration battle, New Orleans was like every other city in that there was a great deal of racial tension between Whites and African Americans. On Sept. 9, 1960, students of Tulane University staged a lunch counter sit-in, and many pickets occurred outside various New Orleans establishments over the next few years (Widmer 29). These sit-ins and pickets have been far less violent than the cities that have had simple protests break out into full-blown riots.
As time progressed, New Orleans saw its fair share of protests. Protesters have gathered just in the past year to fight against such events as an alleged racist open-container law that targeted local African Americans; a proposal by the state legislature to redraw certain districts that would effectively dilute the African American vote in New Orleans; the LEAP testing of elementary and middle schools in Orleans Parish; and the Presidential election debacle at the end of 2000. However, as riots and heavy protests became just another element of urban landscape in other cities, New Orleans stayed immune to large-scale public outcries.
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