Anniversaries and memories: Notes fromthe Gulf Coast revolution in Sept 2005

These are some of the original notes I wrote about forming an anarchist inspired organization that was to become the Common Ground Collective in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  I wrote them all on two separate eight hour trips between Austin and New Orleans as I traversed the highway twice within the first week of the storm between Sept 1-5) while-oddly enough- a person who was to be a future FBI informant drove the truck.

These are some of the big dreams I thought we might want to support communities in making real since the hurricane was the last in a long line of slow disasters on many of these people and communities.
I was terrified, tired, shell shocked already from seeing death and destruction.  I had no idea it would get worse in the coming days with police and vigilante violence.   I also had no idea that others would also have similar dreams and we would begin a process of creating something meaningful as a vehicle to support people in reshaping their worlds n their terms , or at the least helping them to survive.

Here they are messy, bad handwritingand all