By Alexis TaylorAFRO Managing Editor
Just lately, the AFRO profiled 32-year-old Chancellor Mason, a Hurricane Katrina survivor from Gulfport, Miss. This week, we discover what life was like for the Mason household within the aftermath of the storm.
As August turned to September in 2005, Chancellor Mason, his older brother, mom and father did what most Black households in Gulfport, Miss. did: they surveyed the harm and tried to get a grip on their new actuality.
After using out Hurricane Katrina in a North Gulfport faculty, the Mason household returned to their neighborhood on the western facet of city. It was unrecognizable.
“There was pure devastation,” stated Mason. The house they had been renting to personal was destroyed and the household canine, Root Beer, was by no means seen once more. Although the storm was over, the nightmare of restoration had solely simply begun.
Mason advised the AFRO he was in awe at how the Black group was left to fend for themselves in a city that was dwelling to an Air Power base, the Naval Building Battalion Heart, the Atlantic Fleet Seabees and the Mississippi Nationwide Guard.
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“I didn’t see any of them on the streets,” he stated. What he did see was surprising.
“They put barbed wire throughout the railroad tracks,” remembers Mason. “South of the tracks is the richer space, that’s the place the large homes are, that’s the place the companies are. As an alternative of specializing in those who wanted assist, they had been specializing in looters.”
“What number of looters had been there– in comparison with all these those who wanted assist…caught of their homes, in want of meals or water? Folks [were] injured they usually put up barbed wire – and it was there fast…they didn’t even wait,” he stated. “The wires had been up earlier than they even tried to revive energy.”
Mason’s father ended up climbing over this barbed wire to test on his mother-in-law, who happily had taken refuge at one other member of the family’s dwelling. The choice saved her life, as Mason’s father got here again throughout the barbed wire with a report that the home he was trying to find was gone. An 18-wheeler sat as a replacement.
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The household trekked again to the varsity in North Gulfport the place they’d rode out the storm. Survivors tried to rapidly prepare dinner meals left within the faculty’s fridges earlier than it went dangerous. A church group from Illinois supplied sizzling canine.
“The Nationwide Guard did lastly present up, and I bear in mind they had been giving one bag of ice per household and one pack of water per household. Thoughts you, you needed to have a automobile to get in line. You couldn’t stroll,” Mason stated. “They weren’t giving out meals, there have been no MREs being given out. There was no meals making, there [were] no garments being given out. I used to be nonetheless in the identical garments I used to be in once we left the home when the storm began. We hadn’t had a shower.”
“This was 5, six days after the storm, they usually [were] simply getting there,” stated Mason.
Twenty years later, he can nonetheless see the towers of ice and water in his thoughts.
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“They’d stacked all of the stuff up…standing in entrance of it with M16 rifles. As if…if any person superior in the direction of them to get ice or water, they’d shoot them lifeless,” stated Mason.
As a toddler, Mason stated he didn’t perceive. “I used to be confused. ‘Is that this a jail camp?’ ‘Did we not simply lose every thing?’ All we would have liked was assist,” he says.
As an grownup, with eight years of service within the U.S. Navy behind him, Mason says he turns into offended at how he and different survivors had been handled.
“I’d by no means deal with folks the way in which they had been treating us,” Mason advised the AFRO. “The best way they talked to us…the nonchalant angle. Lots of them appeared like they didn’t even need to be there. Even with the police – ask the police questions, and they’d be like, ‘Properly, that’s too dangerous.’ They had been extra involved about pawn outlets.”
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Because the scenario deteriorated, a miracle: a member of the family from Panama Metropolis, Fla. appeared.
Mason’s “Aunt Pickle” helped the household safe gasoline and shortly the household was on their method to Florida.
After briefly staying together with his grandfather, Mason’s household ventured out to Panama Metropolis Seaside, Fla.
“We bumped into an indication that stated ‘refugees welcome right here,’ so my mother pulled over,” stated Mason. “It was a Christian retreat. It regarded like a lodge. They gave us garments. We had meals every single day– breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
“The ‘refugee factor’ was loopy – how am I a refugee in my very own nation? – however I give it to Laguna Seaside Christian Retreat, they actually took care of us. We had misplaced every thing.”
With momentary housing secured, and the varsity yr rapidly approaching, retreat organizers had faculty officers come and register faculty age youngsters on the grounds.
Mason stated the primary day of college was a gorgeous show of humanity that introduced him to tears. College students and academics knew he was becoming a member of the varsity group and had new garments, faculty provides, reward playing cards and extra for him and his household.
However the facade of kindness quickly light. The generosity of the scholar physique was changed by racial slurs, and Mason stated he grew to become resentful in the direction of his mother and father and offended for being compelled to attend faculty in a group that was nonetheless – even in 2005 – very segregated.
“In Mississippi, it was type of like an unwritten rule…‘we’re all gonna thoughts our enterprise.’ That’s type of what it was. I had one White good friend, and even then her mother and father didn’t need us to be associates,” he stated.
Issues had been completely different in Florida.
“There, it was blatantly apparent. It was loud and proud–it was to Accomplice flags on the again of pickup vans, selecting their youngsters up from faculty,” Mason stated.
The household returned to Mississippi in October to see if sufficient progress had been made to return, however they had been sorely disillusioned.
“Issues had been even worse than earlier than we left,” stated Mason. “Lots of the shops that folks would use, just like the grocery shops, nonetheless weren’t open. You needed to go method out of the way in which to even get groceries. They hadn’t picked up any particles, it simply regarded horrible.”
Mason stated it might take three years for his Gulfport neighborhood to get well. In the end, he graduated from a highschool in Florida, and joined the Navy. Nonetheless, he says his mother and father by no means actually had a traditional life once more.
“We struggled a lot. The federal government failed on so many layers. It undoubtedly confirmed me the truth of this nation, ” stated Mason. “I noticed it then, however I actually see it now – how they didn’t care about us as Individuals. If this ever occurs once more. We should be higher.”
As we speak, he helps others as a scientific affiliate in a hospital setting and says he is aware of he’s solely alive “by the grace of God.”
“There was any person that didn’t make it, that thought they had been going to make it,” he stated. “Some folks actually didn’t have a alternative, so I thank God that we’re nonetheless right here. We made it by way of.”
