Jordan Flaherty - FLOODLINES | Octavia Books | New Orleans, Louisiana

Start: 01/11/2011 6:00 pm

This is the most important book I've read about Katrina and what came after. In the tradition of Howard Zinn this could be called “The People's History of the Storm.” Jordan Flaherty was there on the front lines. He compellingly documents the racism, poverty, and neglect at the core of this national failure and the brave, generous, grassroots revolutionaries who saved and continue to save a city and a people. It is my favorite kind of book - great storytelling, accurate accounting, a call for engagement and change.
-Eve Ensler, playwright, The Vagina Monologues

Please join us for a presentation and signing with Jordan Flaherty featuring his new book, Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, a firsthand account of community, culture, and resistance in New Orleans in the years after Katrina. The book weaves the interconnected stories of Mardi Gras Indians, public housing residents, Arab and Latino immigrants, spoken word poets, gay rappers, victims of police brutality, out of town volunteers, and grassroots activists. From post-Katrina evacuee camps, to torture testimony at Angola Prison, to organizing with the family members of the Jena Six, Floodlines tells the stories behind the headlines, from an unforgettable time and place in history. The book has already been added to the curriculum for courses at Amherst College, Xavier University, Tulane University, University of New Orleans, University of Toronto, and many others.

Jordan Flaherty is a writer and staffer with Louisiana Justice Institute. He was the first journalist with a national audience to write about the Jena Six case, and played an important role in bringing the story to worldwide attention. His award-winning reporting from the Gulf Coast has been featured in a range of outlets including the New York Times, Mother Jones, and Argentina's Clarin newspaper.