Last night, I was able to attend the prestigious Sidney Hillman Foundation Journalism Awards, honoring writers, photographers, reporters, and artists who are using the power of words and images to encourage social change and fight for equality. The honorees, all listed here, included the AP reporter who covered the aftermath of Katrina, the man who wrote extensively on the Iraq war, and photographers who documented the faces of AIDS orphans in the US and Carribean.

Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee (Inside Man, Do the Right Thing, 25th Hour) won the Broadcast Award for his work with Sam Pollard on When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. The series documented the devastation following Hurricaine Katrina. Lee was quick to note that this was an "unfinished work" with follow-up to be done in other states and again in Louisiana. He said that he was in Italy for the Venice Film Festival when the storm hit and that no Europeans could believe that the United States had yet to respond to its own people. He became determined to create this project. Desperate to get it green-lit, he told HBO that the film would take ten artists from New Orleans playing ten original compositions amongst the rubble. Once he got the money and permission from the network, he set out to create a documentary that really told the story. That, folks, is determination!

I was backpacking around Eastern Europe and had just flown into Madrid to begin a teaching job in Spain when Katrina hit. I knew NOTHING about the hurricaine, but I remember getting on the metro from the airport and looking up at the flat-screen TVs on the train (I know, fancy train!) and seeing the footage of the wreckage. For days, Spaniards were asking me how this could be happening in America. Very much like Mr. Lee's experience, I found that Europeans were so aghast that a natural disaster could become a social disaster. There is still so much rebuilding to be done, so much work.

Related Cause:          Katrina Relief