| Description: | This article addresses the neglect of African American communities socially, politically, geographically, and economically, particularly with respect to natural disasters and environmental injustice. It argues that the disparities faced by African Americans in everyday culture lead to their facing greater challenges and greater problems associated with natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. Issues such as the Great Migration, segregation laws, and violent racism set the stage for a predominantly African American death toll and displacement during The Great Flood of 1927. Similarly, in Portland, Oregon racial segregation and discrimination led to African Americans living in Vanport, an undesirable reclaimed swamp lowland, which flooded in 1948 leading to mass African American casualties and displacements. Similarly, a disproportionate number of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were African American. This article examines the preexisting discrimination against African Americans and how this negatively affected them during recent natural disasters. |
| Citation: | Rivera JD, Miller DS, “Continually Neglected: Situating Natural Disasters in the African American Experience,” Journal of Black Studies, 2007 37(4) 502-522 |