Why America Needs a 'New Orleans Citizens Bill of Rights'

"A movement that is immersed in the language, spirit and values of the New Orleans Citizen Bill of Rights would refine and clarify the African American conversation, and also alter the prisms through which non-Black Americans perceive the world. That’s what real movements do; it’s what the Civil Rights Movement did. In a real sense, the New Orleans document takes the rights gained by the decades-ago movement to what Black folks used to call 'a higher level'.

[The provisions of The New Orleans Citizen Bill of Rights include:]

"All displaced persons should maintain the 'Right of Return' to New Orleans as an International 'Human Right'; All displaced persons must retain their right of citizenship in the city, especially including the right to vote in the next municipal elections; All displaced persons should have the right to shape and envision the future of the city; All displaced persons should have the right to participate in the rebuilding of the city as owners, producers, providers, planners, developers, workers, and direct beneficiaries; all displaced persons should have the right to affordable neighborhoods, quality affordable housing, adequate health care, good schools, repaired infrastructures, a livable environment and improved transportation and hurricane safety; In rebuilding the city, priority must be given to the right to an environmentally clean and hurricane safe city, rather than the destruction of Black neighborhoods or communities such as the lower 9th ward; priority must be given to the right to preserve and continue the rich and diverse cultural traditions of the city."