Oral history interview with Kalamu ya Salaam, June 5, 2006
Subtitle: Interview U-0264, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Guild, Joshua, interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2006
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; African American journalists; Hurricane Katrina, 2005; Social aspects; Economic aspects
Other titles: Interview U-0264, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Kalamu ya Salaam, June 5, 2006; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Journalist Kalamu ya Salaam has lived in New Orleans all of his life and has long been a part of the cultural life of the city. Currently, he works at The Center, a writing program in the public schools. He describes the lower Ninth Ward he grew up in. During high school, he became active in the civil rights movement. He briefly attended college in Minnesota, but when he dropped out, he enlisted in the army and was trained to work on nuclear missiles. He and his wife did not stay in New Orleans for the storm. Instead, they went to Houston and then on to Nashville. When they returned they discovered that they did not have much water damage. Salaam remembers what it was like to watch the news and see New Orleans flooding, and while watching one of those reports, he decided to document the eyewitness accounts of blacks in the city. He does not yet see any rebuilding occurring, and he blames that on government. He hopes that through his work, he can help young people take control of their own futures, and he is very concerned about the state of the public schools. Though some people have come back, he believes the entire black social structure of New Orleans was erased by the storm because black professionals have not returned. He describes how dark and silent the city was even several months after the storm. He believes that New Orleans will never be the same city, and he expects that most of the young people will leave.
Notes: Title from electronic title page of transcript (viewed on June 22, 2009).

Interview participants: Kalamu Ya Salaam, interviewee; Joshua Guild, interviewer.

Duration: 00:56:47.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files : 88 kilobytes, 103 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series U, interview U-0264. Originals are in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Carrie Blackstock. Original transcript: 21 p.

Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements:  QuickTime and JavaScript for audio clips embedded in transcript; MP3 player for download.