The Bridge Project will be highlighted March 22 in the opening plenary of Katrina @ 5: Partners in Philanthropy, a special convening of the philanthropic community, nearly five years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, to explore the lessons of response, rebuilding, and transformation in the Gulf Coast, and how they apply to communities around the country. [...]

My last post was about the community activists and leaders I interviewed during a meeting of the Gulf Coast Sustainable Communities Network. As I listened to these interviews I was reminded of these comments by Lisa Jackson, U.S. EPA Administrator, at an Environmental Justice Town Hall Meeting in January. A cameraman for my documentary TURKEY CREEK videotaped [...]

This weekend in Moss Point, Mississippi, I videotaped interviews with sixteen community leaders and activists from coastal Alabama (Coden), Louisiana (Terrebonne and Lafourche Parish) and Mississippi (East Biloxi, Lucedale and Moss Point). Excerpts from these interviews will be posted on an interactive map of the Gulf Coast on The Bridge Project Website, which is in [...]

THE BRIDGE PROJECT, a digital initiative that grew out of the TURKEY CREEK documentary, will be in Moss Point Feb. 26 & 27, 2010. Video interviews will be recorded with members of the Gulf Coast Sustainable Communities Network (SCN). The video footage will be provided to the interviewees, the network and The Bridge Project. Excerpts of [...]

It has been a busy time as the post-production of TURKEY CREEK has gone into high gear and the development of The Bridge Project has become a major focus. I have been working with the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health to lay the groundwork for The Bridge Project. In July I met [...]

Coast activists take demands to D.C. Sun Herald Washington Bureau June 1, 2009 WASHINGTON — With a FEMA trailer strategically parked across the street, a coalition of Gulf Coast activists stood outside FEMA headquarters at the start of hurricane season Monday to demand Hurricane Katrina rebuilding and to protest the latest deadline for eviction of about 5,000 [...]

In March I learned that the W. K. Kellogg Foundation will be making a grant to support “Turkey Creek” and the launch of The Bridge Project. I’ll be posting something soon about what this will mean, but for now I’m running off to Louisiana to participate in a meeting of the Gulf Coast Sustainable Communities [...]

National treasure Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong would have turned 100 on March 4, 2009. The Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and other venues around the country will celebrate his centennial with screenings of my documentary SWEET OLD SONG and the “P.O.V.” series will stream the film on it’s Web site from March 2, [...]

Bill Claiborne, of the Louie Bluie Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee, emailed photos of the birthday celebration for Howard that took place in his hometown of LaFollette on March 6. He and the other locals there phoned Barbara Ward Armstrong and sang “Happy Birthday.”

I learned yesterday that Piedmont blues guitarist John Cephas died on March 4 at the age of 78. He and his musical partner Phil Wiggins spent time with Howard Armstrong at the Centrum Country Blues Festival in Port Townsend, Washington, when I was making “Sweet Old Song.” In the film they play “Louie Bluie Blues” [...]