An outstanding resource for students of African American history, government policy, sociology, and human rights, as well as readers interested in socioeconomics in the United States today, this book examines why the divisions between the areas heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina and those left unscathed largely coincided with the color lines in New Orleans neighborhoods; and establishes how African Americans have suffered for 400 years under an oppressive system that has created a permanent underclass of second-class citizenship.

Rather than focusing on the Katrina disaster itself,...