After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans fired thousands of Black teachers. Twenty years later, these groups are bringing them back

Stevona Elem-Rogers (left) and Adrinda Kelly, both of Be Nola, at the Black Is Brilliant summit in New Orleans in 2022. Photograph: Courtesy of Be Nola

Dr Adrienne D Dixson was furious as she sat in the back of a Louisiana courtroom in 2008. It was more than two years after thousands of New Orleans public school teachers had been terminated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Some of those teachers had filed a lawsuit against the Orleans parish school board for wrongful termination and to be compensated for lost wages.

The scene in the room was emotional, Dixson recalled, as many teachers broke down into tears throughout the hearing. “It was clear the love and the care and the dedication that the teachers had,” Dixson said. An associate professor in education at Ohio State University at the time, Dixson was conducting research on Black educators and the effects of Hurricane Katrina. “They were just so profoundly hurt that they had been fired,” she said. “No one knew that the hurricane would also be a category 5 professional disruption.”