User:Labbrla/sandbox

NOCC intro
 original version 

The New Orleans City Council is the legislative branch of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It consists of seven members–five elected from single-member districts, and two elected at-large. The at-large seats are voted on as separate offices, designated as Division 1 and Division 2. The council members are elected to four-year terms, to begin on the second Monday in January following the election, using the two-round system. The President and the Vice President of the Council are chosen by the council at its organizational meeting on the day members take office following the election. The President is elected from the two at-large members; any of the other members of the Council may be elected Vice President.

 edited version 

The New Orleans City Council is the legislative branch of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The current mayor-council form of city government was created in 1954, following the 1950 amendment of the state constitution that provided for a home rule charter for the city. The 1954 Charter provided for seven members, five elected from single-member districts, and two elected at-large, replacing the 1912 Charter, which provided for a commission form of government with a mayor and four commissioners.

The council members are elected to four-year terms, using the two-round system. The President and the Vice President of the Council are chosen by the council at its organizational meeting on the day members take office following the election. The President is elected from the two at-large members; any of the other members of the Council may be elected Vice President.

to intro for table: Council Members following implementation of the 1954 Charter
 the following text should be edited and placed before table of office holders 

Under the 1954 Charter, council members are elected to four-year terms that begin on the first Monday in May following the election, except that a councilmember elected to fill a vacancy serves only for the remainder of the unexpired term. Vacancies that occur less than one year before the end of the term may be filled by appointment; vacancies of a year or longer are filled by special election, and that vacancy may be filled by appointment for the period before the special election. After the regular 1970 elections, a redistricting dispute delayed the next regular Council elections until 1976, and the following regular Council election was held in 1978. Effective in 1991, a council member who has served more than one and a half terms in two consecutive terms may not be elected to the office for the following term. Beginning in 2014 the at-large seats are voted on as separate offices, designated as Division 1 and Division 2. Effective June 1, 2018, the terms of office begin on the second Monday in January following the election.

preparation notes

ADD NOTE RE: After the regular 1970 elections, a redistricting dispute delayed the next regular Council elections until 1976. The next regular election for Council was held in 1978. After the regular 1970 elections, a redistricting dispute delayed the next regular Council elections until 1976, and the following regular Council election was held in 1978. Effective in 1991, a council member who has served more than one and a half terms in two consecutive terms may not be elected to the office for the following term. Beginning in 2014 the at-large seats are voted on as separate offices, designated as Division 1 and Division 2. Effective June 1, 2018, the terms of office begin on the second Monday in January following the election.

filling vacancies Section 3-105(2)

(2) A vacancy in the office of any councilmember shall be filled as follows:

(a) If the unexpired term is less than one year, the remaining members of the Council shall select by a majority vote of all of its members a citizen with the requisite qualifications to fill the vacancy for the unexpired term. Vacancies shall be filled only at a regular meeting of the Council after reasonable notice of the vacancy to all remaining members of the Council. Should the Council fail to fill any vacancy within thirty days after its occurrence, the Mayor shall appoint a citizen with the requisite qualifications to fill the vacancy for the unexpired term. A citizen selected or appointed to fill such vacancy shall be ineligible to qualify as a candidate for that office at the next election.

(b)(i) If the unexpired term is for one year or more, the vacancy shall be filled by special election, to be called by the Council within ten days after its occurrence and to be held in accordance with the election laws of the State, at which time the electors of the City, or should the vacant office be that of a district councilmember, the electors of that district, shall elect a citizen with the requisite qualifications to fill the vacancy for the remainder of term; provided that if any special or general election is to be held in the City after sixty days and within six months after occurrence of the vacancy, then the election shall be held in conjunction with such other election.

(ii) During the period between the time of vacancy and the filling of such vacancy by special election, the Council, by majority vote of its entire membership, shall select a citizen with the requisite qualifications to fill the vacancy. Should the Council fail to fill any vacancy within thirty days after its occurrence, the Mayor shall appoint a citizen with the requisite qualifications to fill the vacancy during the interim period. A citizen selected or appointed to fill the vacancy shall be ineligible to qualify as a candidate for that office at the next election called to fill the vacancy.

term limits Section 3-105(3)

(3) A person who has served as a councilmember representing a Council district for more than one and one-half terms in two consecutive terms shall not be elected as a councilmember representing a Council district for the succeeding term. A person who has served as a councilmember-at-large for more than one and one-half terms in two consecutive terms shall not be elected as a councilmember-at-large for the succeeding term.

If a member leaves office less than a year before the end of the term, the remaining City Council members select a citizen meeting the qualifications for the office to fill the vacancy for the remainder of the term. If the office is vacated a year or more before the end of the term, the seat is filled by special election.

THIS SHOULD BE more than one and one-half terms in two consecutive terms - see Section 3-105

Effective in 1991, term limits restricted district council members to two consecutive terms serving the same district, and at-large members to two consecutive "at-large" terms.

this links to 2022 version of code

Beginning in 2014 the at-large seats are voted on as separate offices, designated as Division 1 and Division 2.

May 31, 2014 version is oldest version available

Council members under the 1954 Charter
Under the 1954 Charter, council members are elected to four-year terms that begin on the first Monday in May following the election, except that a councilmember elected to fill a vacancy serves only for the remainder of the unexpired term. Vacancies that occur less than one year before the end of the term may be filled by appointment; vacancies of a year or longer are filled by special election, and that vacancy may be filled by appointment for the period before the special election. After the regular 1970 elections, a redistricting dispute delayed the next regular Council elections until 1976, and the following regular Council election was held in 1978. Effective in 1991, a council member who has served more than one and a half terms in two consecutive terms may not be elected to the office for the following term. Beginning in 2014 the at-large seats are voted on as separate offices, designated as Division 1 and Division 2. Effective June 1, 2018, the terms of office begin on the second Monday in January following the election.

Office holders for terms before 2022 and reference notes for those office holders are from the City Archives at the New Orleans Public Library. Office holders for the 2022-2026 term are from the Louisiana Secretary of State election results for the November 13, 2021, general election and the December 11, 2021, runoff election.

NEW ver 2E
Add text re sources, terms of office, etc.

2022-2026 terms from:

earlier terms from:

NEW ver 3
Add text re sources, terms of office, etc.

2022-2026 terms from:

earlier terms from:

NEW ver 3B
Office holders for terms before 2022 and reference notes for those office holders are from the City Archives at the New Orleans Public Library. Office holders for the 2022-2026 term are from the Louisiana Secretary of State election results for the November 13, 2021, general election and the December 11, 2021, runoff election.

NEW ver 3A
Office holders for terms before 2022 and reference notes for those office holders are from the City Archives at the New Orleans Public Library. Office holders for the 2022-2026 term are from the Louisiana Secretary of State election results for the November 13, 2021, general election and the December 11, 2021, runoff election.

draft changes for Dorothy Mae Taylor
ref 1, name ":0" (edited from original version: added author; replaced website field with publisher field):

ref 2, name "laweekly" (from original version)

ref 3, name bio (from original version; bad link ):

ref 4, name ":04" (edited from original version: added ref name):

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<5> <6> <7> <8> <9> <10> <11> <12>


 * <13> http://www.neworleanspast.com/todayinneworleanshistory/august10.html

<14> <15> <16> <17>

 continue edit with drafts in text file: restructured article, and research with leads and urls in text file: notes 

 new intro text 

Dorothy Mae DeLavallade Taylor (August 10, 1928 – August 18, 2000), was an educator, civil rights activist, and politician in New Orleans. She was the first African-American woman member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, and later served on the New Orleans City Council. She worked on issues of child care, racial discrimination, inhumane conditions in state prisons, women's rights, and health care.

Documents from her life and career are housed at the Amistad Research Center, the Ellender Memorial Library at Nicholls State University, The Historic New Orleans Collection, and the City Archives of the New Orleans Public Library.

Before 1971
 new references 

<5> <6> <7> <8> <9> <10> <11> <12>


 * <13> http://www.neworleanspast.com/todayinneworleanshistory/august10.html

<14> <15> <16> <17>

 from original article, for this section 

from intro for this section

She had started her career as a teacher in the Head Start Program, designed to benefit children in their early years.

She was also active in civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, gaining more resources for facilities for African Americans in the city.

from original political career section for this section

Taylor began her career in public service in the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), demanding equal supplies for African American children from the Orleans Parish School Board. She was vital to the desegregation of the New Orleans Recreation Department, as well as voter registration. While working as a deputy clerk in the New Orleans Civil District Court, Taylor won a special election in 1971 to succeed Ernest Nathan Morial in the state House. He had been elected as the first black juvenile court judge in Orleans Parish.

original text, edited for this section

QUESTION: PTA vs Head Start ??

Taylor was active in civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, gaining more resources for facilities for African Americans in the city. She started her career as a teacher with Head Start, a program designed to benefit children in their early years, and her career in public service in the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), demanding equal supplies for African American children from the Orleans Parish School Board. She was vital to the desegregation of the New Orleans Recreation Department, as well as voter registration. While working as a deputy clerk in the New Orleans Civil District Court, Taylor won a special election in 1971 to succeed Ernest Nathan Morial in the state legislature, after he had been elected as the first black juvenile court judge in Orleans Parish.

' from new sources, for this section

before legislature

As the parent-teacher association president for two of the schools her children attended, she led a fight against the Orleans Parish School Board demanding equality within the segregated system and eventually won supplies and funding for black schools on par with those for white children.<5>

Her participation in the civil rights movement continued with her successful efforts to desegregate the facilities of the New Orleans Recreation Department and to register African American voters.<5>

Her career in public service began with the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) of the Orleans Parish School Board. At that time, school segregation relegated Black children to under-funded schools. One of Taylor's many efforts to equalize the segregated schools was the demand for equal supplies for Black schools from the School Board. She would eventually serve as the President of 3 different school PTAs.<6>

Following the desegregation of public schools in New Orleans during the 1960s, she turned her focus toward integrating the New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD). Taylor showed that NORD operated a segregated program and demanded public funding be discontinued. Instead, the allocated budget went to neighborhood residents to fund and operate their own programs. Under her supervision, recreation was provided to children through a city-wide recreation committee. She also worked to promote adult literacy programs and facilitated voter registration drives in the Guste Projects.<6>

before legislature

Dorothy Mae Delavallade Taylor was born August 10, 1928 in New Orleans, the youngest of thirteen children born to Charles Henry and Mary Delavallade.<7>

She was educated in the Orleans Parish School system and furthered her education at Southern University (Baton Rouge).<7>

She married Johnny Taylor, Jr. in 1948 and started her career in public service as an activist in the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), demanding equal supplies for the black schools from the Orleans Parish School Board. Following desegregation of the school system she was instrumental in desegregation of the New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD) and active during the fight for voter registration. Her first political post was as Deputy Clerk in Civil District Court<7>

before legislature

Dorothy Mae Delavallade Taylor was born August 10, 1928 in New Orleans, the youngest of thirteen children born to Charles Henry and Mary Delavallade.<8>

She was educated in the Orleans Parish School system and furthered her education at Southern University (Baton Rouge).<8>

She married Johnny Taylor, Jr. in 1948 and started her career in public service as an activist in the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), demanding equal supplies for the black schools from the Orleans Parish School Board. Following desegregation of the school system she was instrumental in desegregation of the New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD) and active during the fight for voter registration.<8>

Her first political post was as Deputy Clerk in Civil District Court and by 1971 her work and support in the community helped her become the first African American woman to be elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives.<8>

before legislature

Louisiana State Representative for District 20 (Orleans Parish) Dorothy Mae Taylor was a New Orleans educator, civil rights leader and politician. Taylor was the first African-American woman to be elected to and serve in the Louisiana House of Representatives.<10>

She was also active in civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, gaining more resources for facilities for African Americans in the city. In the late 1950s, she successfully petitioned the New Orleans Public Schools and the New Orleans Recreation Department to not provide equal resources to Blacks.<10>

Prior to entering elected office, Taylor was a Head Start teacher and served as director of the Central City Neighborhood Health Clinic.<10>

before legislature

Dorothy Mae Taylor was born 10 August 1928 in New Orleans, La. Prior to getting involved in politics, Taylor studied at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. and was a Head Start Teacher at William J. Guste Elementary School.<11>

Taylor began her career as a social activist in the late 1940s.<11>

As the parent-teacher association president for two of the schools her children attended, she led a fight against the Orleans Parish School Board demanding equality within the segregated system and eventually won supplies and funding for black schools on par with those for white children.<11>

During the early 1960s, she was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement assisting in marches, sit-ins, and picketing.<11>

Her participation in the Civil Rights Movement continued with her successful efforts to desegregate the facilities of the New Orleans Recreation Department and to register African American voters.<11>

before legislature

As the parent-teacher association president for two of the schools her children attended, she led a fight against the Orleans Parish School Board demanding equality within the segregated system and eventually won supplies and funding for black schools on par with those for white children.<12>

Her participation in the civil rights movement continued with her successful efforts to desegregate the facilities of the New Orleans Recreation Department and to register African American voters.<12>

 final text for this section 

1971-1980: service in the Louisiana Legislature
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<5> <6> <7> <8> <9> <10> <11> <12>


 * <13> http://www.neworleanspast.com/todayinneworleanshistory/august10.html

<14> <15> <16> <17>

 from original article, for Service in Louisiana Legislature section 

from intro to legislature section

From 1971 to 1980, she represented District 20 (since renumbered) in her native New Orleans.

from original political career section to new legislature section

After her election to the state house, Taylor was uneasy about being the first African-American woman to serve there. She said that she "prayed and prayed … and the answer to my fear came to me in church one Sunday morning when the choir began to sing, ‘If Jesus goes with me I’ll go anywhere.’ It was then that I knew that God had a plan and purpose for my life." Louisiana State University named Taylor in 1972 as "Legislator of the Year".

Sidney Barthelemy, another African-American political figure in New Orleans and Morial's successor as mayor, recalled that Representative Taylor had been committed to: "'criminal justice reform. She worked very hard to make sure that all people were treated fairly and humanely, especially those who were imprisoned. She felt that even those incarcerated deserved to be given basic health care and some semblance of a quality of life. After all, if we treat individuals like animals while they're incarcerated, how do you expect them to act when they are released back into the community?”"

edited original text for this section

From 1971 to 1980, Taylor represented District 20 (since renumbered), in her native New Orleans, in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

After her election to the state house, Taylor was uneasy about being the first African-American woman to serve there. She said that she "prayed and prayed … and the answer to my fear came to me in church one Sunday morning when the choir began to sing, ‘If Jesus goes with me I’ll go anywhere.’ It was then that I knew that God had a plan and purpose for my life."

In 1972 Louisiana State University named Taylor "Legislator of the Year".

Sidney Barthelemy, another African-American political figure in New Orleans and Morial's successor as mayor, recalled that Representative Taylor had been committed to criminal justice reform: "She worked very hard to make sure that all people were treated fairly and humanely, especially those who were imprisoned. She felt that even those incarcerated deserved to be given basic health care and some semblance of a quality of life. After all, if we treat individuals like animals while they're incarcerated, how do you expect them to act when they are released back into the community?"

' from new sources, for this section

in legislature

A trailblazer, Taylor became the first African American woman elected to the Louisiana State Legislature, in 1971; the first woman to receive the Legislator of the Year award, in 1972;<5>

in legislature

Dorothy Taylor first entered politics in 1971, running as a candidate for Louisiana House of Representatives, District 20, representing the first and second wards of New Orleans.<6>

A majority of the residents of the area represented lived below the poverty line. It was home to three large federal housing projects: Guste Homes, Calliope, and Magnolia. In addition to the residential neighborhoods, District 20 was also home to a bustling commercial corridor along Dryades St., dubbed the "new Rampart St.," in reference to the popular avenue that stretched from downtown New Orleans to the French Quarter. Dryades was home to several important businesses, two theaters: the Dashiki Project Theater and the Free Southern Theater, and the Flint-Goodridge Hospital.<6>

The incumbent, Ernest "Dutch" Morial, had relinquished his seat when he was appointed as Judge of Orleans Parish Juvenile Court. Taylor won the election, becoming the first African American woman elected to the Louisiana State Congress.<6>

She viewed her election, along with the rise of other prominent African American women in politics such as Shirley Chisholm and Fannie Lou Hamer, as a symbolic continuation of the actions of the suffragettes of the 1920s.<6>

In a speech given titled "Women, Your Power, Your Vote, 1920 to the Present," she praised the actions of pioneering suffragettes that has led to the visible and tangible exercise of power in the leading female politicians of the day. Taylor used her position in politics as a platform of support for African Americans and women. She actively encouraged women to turn their strengths into actions – campaigning for office, supporting other women, and supporting candidates who were focused on women's issues.<6>

In addition to her advocacy for women's issues, Dorothy Mae Taylor was also an outspoken proponent of prison reform.<6>

There were widespread efforts directed at increasing public awareness to the inhumane conditions that exist in American penal institutions, especially after the uprising in Attica, New York. Taylor participated in various community and national forums on reforming prisons. To quote a speech held in her collection: "As long as we perceive the need for prisons to exist and as long as juries of peers – people like you and me – continue to send a fellow man to live, degenerate, and even die in a home more mindful than hell – we must face up to the responsibilities it involves." To understand the fundamental changed needed in the Louisiana's penitentiaries, Mrs. Taylor visited every penal institution in the state. And during the 1971 Legislative Session, she authored legislation that created a joint committee to investigate conditions at Angola Prison.<6>

Other highlights of her tenure as State representative include writing the legislation to secure funding for Louisiana's first Sickle Cell Anemia Education & Screening program and introducing a resolution into the Louisiana House of Representatives to remove all segregation statutes from Louisiana Law – discriminatory laws that remained on the books although they were superseded by federal measures. The resolution failed to pass when other legislators left the chamber to avoid voting on the measure.<6>

in legislature

and by 1971 her work and support in the community helped her become the first African American woman to be elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives. She served as a state congress woman until 1980. She worked on issues of health care, child care, discrimination and inhumane conditions in Louisiana's prisons.<7>

in legislature

She served as a state congress woman until 1980. She worked on issues of health care, child care, discrimination and inhumane conditions in Louisiana's prisons.<8>

in legislature ???

Taylor was a major proponent of criminal justice reform. She considered her efforts at penal reform to have been partially successful because she built a coalition among the courts, community organizations, the press and hundreds of volunteers to work toward humane treatment of the incarcerated.<10>

in legislature

A trailblazer, Taylor became the first African American woman elected to the Louisiana State Legislature, in 1971; the first woman to receive the Legislator of the Year award, in 1972;<11>

in legislature

A trailblazer, Taylor became the first African American woman elected to the Louisiana State Legislature, in 1971; the first woman to receive the Legislator of the Year award, in 1972;<12>

while in legislature (not legislative work)

In 1976, 1,500 women—black and white—and a few men met for the Louisiana Governor's Conference on Women, sponsored by the Louisiana Commission on the Status of Women headed by Myrtle Pickering. The conference was chaired by Elaine Edwards, wife of then Governor Edwin Edwards, Fran Bussie, and Dorothy Mae Taylor.<15>

 1972  Gov. Edwin Edwards said today that he will call a special election March 20, to fill the Congressional seat of the missing House majority leader, Representative Hale Boggs of Louisiana, if Congress declares the seat vacant by that time. [ excerpts ] Top contenders for his seat include his wife, Lindy Boggs and a black New Orleans State Representative Dorothy Mae Taylor.<16>

in legislature - edited to support this sentence:

Taylor supported adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment by Louisiana.<17>

 final text for this section 

1980 to 1986
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<5> <6> <7> <8> <9> <10> <11> <12>


 * <13> http://www.neworleanspast.com/todayinneworleanshistory/august10.html

<14> <15> <16> <17>

 from original article, for years after service in legislature section 

from intro to section after legislature

As Director of the Central City Neighborhood Health Clinic from 1980, she also worked to develop African-American leaders among her staff, and mentored a number of future politicians in the state. In 1984 she was appointed by Governor Edwin Edwards as head of the state Department of Urban and Community Affairs, becoming the first African-American woman to hold a cabinet position.

from original CCNHC section to this section

After her legislative service ended in 1980, Taylor became director of the Central City Neighborhood Health Clinic, operated by the Total Community Action Agency in New Orleans. She worked to develop other African-American political leaders from these agencies, and some of her proteges went on to political office, including State Senator Henry Braden, Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Irma Muse Dixon, and state Representative Sherman Copelin. Austin Badon was an intern in Taylor's City Hall office while he attended the University of New Orleans, and later was elected to the state House.

In 1984, Taylor was appointed by third-term Governor Edwin Edwards to head the state Department of Urban and Community Affairs, the first African-American woman to hold a state cabinet position. In 1985, she received the "Humanitarian Award" from the Louisiana Association of Community Action Agencies.

edited text for this section

After her legislative service ended in 1980, Taylor became director of the Central City Neighborhood Health Clinic, operated by the Total Community Action Agency in New Orleans. She worked to develop other African-American political leaders from these agencies, and some of her proteges went on to political office, including State Senator Henry Braden, Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Irma Muse Dixon, and state Representative Sherman Copelin. Austin Badon was an intern in Taylor's City Hall office while he attended the University of New Orleans, and later was elected to the state House.

In 1984, Taylor was appointed by third-term Governor Edwin Edwards to head the state Department of Urban and Community Affairs, the first African-American woman to hold a state cabinet position. In 1985, she received the "Humanitarian Award" from the Louisiana Association of Community Action Agencies.

' from new sources, for this section

after legislature

the first African American woman to head a state department (Urban and Community Affairs), in 1984;<5>

after legislature

After 9 years as State Representative, Mrs. Taylor chose not to run for re-election, and worked as an administrator at the Central City Neighborhood Health Center, a clinic aimed toward providing quality health care to the poor. Despite her break from political office, she remained active in local and state politics. Governor Edwin E. Edwards appointed Taylor as Secretary of the Department of Urban and Community Affairs, chairperson of the Governor's Community Action Agency Task Force, the State Job Training Coordination Council, and the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency.<6>

after legislature

In 1984, she was appointed by Governor Edwin Edwards as head of the state Department of Urban and Community Affairs. She was the first African-American woman to hold a cabinet position.<10>

after legislature

Taylor was hired as the Director of Total Community Action's Central City Health Clinic. Her job was to improve access to health care for impoverished members of the community, but she did even more than just that. She met deputy director of Charity Hospital (and future civil rights icon) Oretha Castle Haley. During her time at Total Community Action, she also developed what would turn out to be an entire generation of Black New Orleans leaders. Including, future mayors Ernest "Dutch" Morial and Sidney Barthelemy — along with dozens of other African American New Orleanians who would help shape the city in the coming decades.<11>

after legislature

the first African American woman to head a state department (Urban and Community Affairs), in 1984;<11>

after legislature

the first African American woman to head a state department (Urban and Community Affairs), in 1984;<12>

 final text for this section 

1986-1994: service on the New Orleans City Council
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<5> <6> <7> <8> <9> <10> <11> <12>


 * <13> http://www.neworleanspast.com/todayinneworleanshistory/august10.html

<14> <15> <16> <17>

from original CCNHC section to new city counsel section

In 1986, she was elected to one of two at-large positions on the New Orleans City Council. Taylor was the first African American woman elected to this seat. She held the position until reaching term-limits in 1994. She was chosen as council president in 1987. Her tenure on the council coincided with that of Mayor Barthelemy.

The final ordinance required krewe captains to sign an affidavit certifying that they are not discriminating as a condition for obtaining a parade permit. The Mistick Krewe of Comus and Momus stopped parading in New Orleans as a result of the new law, but Rex, King of the Carnival, and the Proteus krewe, after some hesitation, adopted Taylor's liberal guidelines. James Gill, daily columnist of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, referred to Taylor as "the firebrand of the New Orleans City Council."

from original Mardi Gras subsection

' NEEDS MAJOR EDIT Taken from June 13, 2011, print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper '

In 1992 Dorothy Mae Taylor authored an ordinance insisting that all Mardi Gras krewes stop discriminating and institute an open admission policy for anyone seeking to join their organizations, if they chose to use city services to hold their parades. The reaction to this ordinance was swift and downright vicious. Old-line krewes threatened to end Mardi Gras by refusing to parade if this ordinance was enforced. Mrs. Taylor held public hearings that forced the club members to answer questions they didn't even ask in private. Nearly all of the old-line krewes were found to be "all-male and all-white"; they not only excluded Blacks but also women, gays, Jews and Italians.

Embarrassed and humiliated, the krewes of Momus, Comus, and Proteus decided to follow up on their threats and issued a press release stating that they would no longer parade on the streets of New Orleans. Soon articles were being written assailing Mrs. Taylor as a racist and berated her on posters and T-shirts as "The Grinch who Stole Mardi Gras." Racial tensions in the city reached a fevered pitch. Even so, some 15 years after the ordinance was unanimously passed by the City Council and nearly six years after Mrs. Taylor had passed away, certain segments of the community were still angry as evidenced in an interview given to NPR in 2006 by the city's daily newspaper columnist James Gill, "I think you cannot deny that she is remembered among white people here as the vixen who tried to destroy Mardi Gras, and who to some extent succeeded."

"I think Dorothy was just trying to protect everyone's rights under the law," insisted Sidney Barthelemy. "Her intent was never to destroy Mardi Gras — she simply wanted to make sure a certain class of people didn't discriminate against others…. and that was indeed a noble cause."

"What Mrs. Taylor was simply saying is that if you benefit from public funding that you have to be accessible to the public… and the enemies to the openness of that theory spun it into something that they figured the public could relate to – so they spun it into an attack on Mardi Gras," Jay Banks told The Louisiana Weekly. "Mrs. Taylor knew that many lucrative business deals were being made in those private clubs that most people didn't have access to, and more times than not, it related to business deals that involved tax dollars. Those businessmen were benefiting, but if you or I were in the same business, we didn't have the opportunity to sit at their table and have that discussion. That is how the whole thing started."

"We would write letters to the Picayune about the discrimination ordinance but none of them were ever published," Banks told The Louisiana Weekly. "But those rants espousing hatred and viciousness always got published and it became apparent to me who the Picayune had aligned itself with – they never had any intention of showing the real issue behind the story and it is unfortunate that to many whites, this was her lasting legacy. But when it came time to stand up for what she believed in, Mrs. Taylor didn't mind getting hit upside the head – if she thought it was the right thing to do. In hindsight it turned out to be a good thing…." Banks added. "It helped make Mardi Gras into something bigger and better than it ever was… Consider this: When Momus, Comus, and Proteus cancelled their parades, they said that they were going to move their parades to other parishes, namely Jefferson. It's been nearly 20 years now and although Proteus has taken a step into the 21st century and returned to the parade schedule, I'm still waiting for the others to show up elsewhere… It was all a smokescreen — they used the ordinance as a scapegoat to walk away from parading when they could no longer afford to parade anyway; and the ones that stuck around are bigger and culturally friendly; and as a result Mardi Gras is better than it ever was… I believe her legacy will be long remembered if folks will just understand that she saw a wrong and simply tried to make it right. She will be remembered for the light that she was in."

edited original text for this section

In 1986 Taylor was elected to one of two at-large positions on the New Orleans City Council. She was the first African American woman elected to this seat and held the position until reaching term-limits in 1994. She was chosen as council president in 1987. Her tenure on the council coincided with that of Mayor Barthelemy.

The final ordinance required krewe captains to sign an affidavit certifying that they are not discriminating as a condition for obtaining a parade permit. The Mistick Krewe of Comus and Momus stopped parading in New Orleans as a result of the new law, but Rex, King of the Carnival, and the Proteus krewe, after some hesitation, adopted Taylor's liberal guidelines. James Gill, daily columnist of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, referred to Taylor as "the firebrand of the New Orleans City Council."

' from new sources, for this section

on city council

and one of the first two women (along with Peggy Wilson)—and the first African American woman—to serve on the New Orleans City Council, in 1986.<5>

As a council member, Taylor braved torrents of criticism in 1992 after presenting an ordinance banning discrimination in the membership of Mardi Gras krewes, a move that paved the way for their desegregation.<5>

on city council

In 1986, Taylor became to the first woman elected to New Orleans' City Council. She is remembered most for the city ordinance introduced in 1991, prohibiting discrimination based on race, religion, and gender in Mardi Gras krewes. The writing of the law originally included jail time for those who violated the ordinance, but later revisions eliminated the associated jail time and removed the prohibition of gender discrimination. Despite her authoring of the ordinance, she ultimately voted against the revised law, arguing that violators should be treated the same as anyone else who break municipal laws. The law now simply requires krewes to state that they have no discriminatory practices to in order to receive a parade permit.<6>

The ordinance caused a backlash against Taylor - despite the inefficacy of the amended law, several "old-line" krewes withdrew from public participation in Mardi Gras in protest. Residents from not only New Orleans, but also from outside the city as well, harassed her office with threats and racist remarks. Unfazed, she stood strong behind her belief that if public funds are used to subsidize or support a public project, parade, or program, then no one should be barred from participation through discrimination.<6>

in city council

In 1986 she was the first African American woman to be elected to the New Orleans City Council serving until 1994. In 1992 she presented an ordinance to the Council demanding that the traditional and segregated Krewes of Mardi Gras allow anyone who applied to become members of the society in order to integrate these clubs.<7>

on city council

In 1986 she was the first African American woman to be elected to the New Orleans City Council serving until 1994. In 1992 she presented an ordinance to the Council demanding that the traditional and segregated Krewes of Mardi Gras allow anyone who applied to become members of the society in order to integrate these clubs.<8>

on city council

In 1986, she was elected to one of two at-large positions on the New Orleans City Council. She was chosen as council president in 1987. Taylor was term-limited in 1994 but among the hallmarks of her city council career was her effort to desegregate the city's Mardi Gras parade krewes.<10>

Taylor's 1992 ordinance required krewe captains to sign an affidavit certifying that they are not discriminating as a condition for obtaining a parade permit. She reasoned that if the parade krewes wanted to use city services to hold their parades, they could not discriminate on the basis of race. Back then, the krewes' were composed of all-male and all-white prominent business leaders in New Orleans.<10>

on city council

and one of the first two women (along with Peggy Wilson)—and the first African American woman—to serve on the New Orleans City Council, selected Councilwoman-at-Large in New Orleans. As a council member, Taylor braved torrents of criticism in 1992 after presenting an ordinance banning discrimination in the membership of Mardi Gras krewes, a move that paved the way for their desegregation.<11>

on city council

and one of the first two women (along with Peggy Wilson)—and the first African American woman—to serve on the New Orleans City Council, in 1986.<12>

As a council member, Taylor braved torrents of criticism in 1992 after presenting an ordinance banning discrimination in the membership of Mardi Gras krewes, a move that paved the way for their desegregation.<12>

on city council ENTIRE ARTICLE IS ABOUT MARDI GRAS ORDINANCE

The Knights of Momus, faced with having to comply with a new city law banning membership discrimination by groups taking part in New Orleans' famous Carnival celebration, announced Sunday it has canceled its annual Mardi Gras parade.<14>

Other Carnival organizations, claiming the city administration does not appreciate their contributions to New Orleans' huge annual Mardi Gras celebration, have also threatened to cancel their parades. 'Momus, Son of Night, God of Mockery and Ridicule, regretfully and respectfully informs his friends, supporters and his public that he will not parade the streets of New Orleans on the Thursday evening before Shrove Tuesday, 1992, as he has customarily since 1872,' the 120-year- old Knights of Momus said in a statment.<14>

The root of the controversy is an ordinance approved by the City Council Dec. 19 which will deny parade permits to Carnival organizations unless they can prove they do not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age or disability. The new ordinance is slated to go into effect after the 1993 festival.<14>

According to Carnival insiders, Momus's 1992 parade on Feb. 27 was to have included floats lampooning Republican presidential candidate David Duke of Louisiana, Gov. Edwin Edwards and Councilwoman Dorothy Mae Taylor, who introduced the ordinance.<14>

Momus has paraded 87 times in 120 years, choosing not to roll for reasons such as World Wars I and II, a yellow fever epidemic in 1879 and when one of its floats caught fire in 1974. Members of Momus and other old-line clubs, or krewes, said they view the new ordinance as unfair interference in their private affairs. They also say the law has created divisive feelings in the city that may make it unsafe for their members to parade in the future.

Mike Smith, captain of the Krewe of Hermes, whose organization voted in December not to holds its parade, said 'I have to agree 100 percent' with Momus's decision. 'As it stands now, we will not parade,' Smith said. 'We were quite interested in upholding tradition, but if the tradition doesn't go on, what is there to preserve?'<14>

Two of the city's oldest crewes, Comus and Proteus, have suggested they, too, might cancel their parades. 'I've heard a lot of comments that parading was going to end soon, anyway, even if Dorothy Mae had not come on the scene,' one of the krewe members said. 'I think the safety aspect was perceived (as) not going to get any better. I'm not talking about spectators in general, but a small group seems to becoming more -- militant.' However, many krewes have said they intend to go on with the show. 'It is our intent to go on with Mardi Gras and to work with the krewes that want to work with the city in a spirit of cooperation,' said Mayor Sidney Barthelemy.<14>

 final text for this section 

After 1994
from new sources, for this section

after city council

After two terms on the New Orleans City Council, Taylor ran unsuccessfully for the Office of Registrar and Conveyances.<6>

The fight to pass the anti-discrimination law was one of the last efforts to of a woman who dedicated her entire life to the deconstruction of racial and gender barriers in Louisiana. Dorothy Mae Taylor was a grassroots activist through and through until her death on August 18, 2000.<6>

 final text for this section 

draft for album Inéditos
Inéditos is a posthumous album by Argentine folk musician Tamara Castro. It was produced and compiled by Jorge Mlikota and released on the DBN label, an imprint of Distribuidora Belgrano Norte, in 2006. It is a compilation of songs that Castro had discarded from the recording sessions of her studio albums between 1996 and her death in 2006, although these songs were part of the repertoire in her performances.

This Changes Everything
This Changes Everything superbly dramatizes the seemingly intractable ways that global capitalism is locked into a carbon death spiral, and how small bands of activists are fighting worldwide to stop it, against increasingly punishing repression. Klein's reporting on fracking, green-washing, geoengineering, the Canadian tar sands, climate denial, renewable energy and the resistance movements she calls "Blockadia" (a variety of resistance movements working to stem oil development) is deeply researched, astute and eye-opening.

edits go here

Klein spent five years writing the book, which debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at number five on 5 October 2014.

In Rolling Stone Roy Scranton wrote that the book "superbly dramatizes the seemingly intractable ways that global capitalism is locked into a carbon death spiral, and how small bands of activists are fighting worldwide to stop it, against increasingly punishing repression."

The Shock Doctrine
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which highlighted a genealogy of capitalist predation that ran from Milton Friedman right into George W. Bush's White House, showing us how the military-industrial complex had metastasized into a new form of security-state corporatism.

paraphrasing goes here

No is Not Enough
this book does not have separate page - is in Klein's page

'In terms of No is Not Enough, one of the things that motivated me to try to get it out quickly,' continues Klein, a stern expression crossing her face, 'is that I am really worried about how Trump and the people he has surrounded himself with would take advantage of a major external shock; a terrorist attack, or a major financial meltdown. There are items on their agenda that are very clear, but which they can’t get through [Congress] without some kind of crisis.'

This new book argues for radical change, and for bold, ambitious policies, to provide a credible alternative to the world vision of the Trump White House, and avert the worst effects of climate change. 'We need those sorts of solutions where we're creating local jobs, we're fighting austerity and we're lowering emissions at the same time,' she stresses. 'We live in this time of overlapping crises, so we need real multiple wins.'

At a high profile speech at the South Bank Centre's Royal Festival Hall in London recently, Klein highlights a key point from the conclusion of her new book, that we should have been getting ready for the day that Trump – or a Trump-like personality – would take the oath of off ice. 'We should have been expecting him,' she announces to the audience.

edits go here

8/16/22 added to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Klein

Writing in Geographical, Chris Fitch described this book as arguing for "radical change, and for bold, ambitious policies, to provide a credible alternative to the world vision of the Trump White House, and avert the worst effects of climate change."

Interviews
Excerpt from interview in New Internationalist:

NK: One of the ways people are already responding to my book, even before reading it, is ‘Oh, she’s politicizing this issue which has to be apolitical’. To me, that reflects how blind so many within the mainstream climate discussion are to the fact that they themselves are fully immersed within the confines of neoliberalism; so much so that they don’t see how political it is to have favoured market mechanisms over regulation, for instance. That’s a highly political decision. It’s a fantasy that you could fundamentally shift the building blocks of your economy without engaging with politics. The ‘minor tweaks’ route that we’ve been on, from light bulbs to putting less water in the kettle to carbon trading and offsets, is a reflection once again of the strength of neoliberal orthodoxy. We live within a culture that has indoctrinated us into the idea that there is no alternative. The idea of changing capitalism is so unfathomable to anyone who came of age post-1980s that it’s almost unthinkable.

edits

In an interview with Graeme Greene in the New Internationalist, Klein rejected criticisms that her book politicized the climate issue and that the issue should be apolitical, replying that such criticisms reflect "how blind so many within the mainstream climate discussion are to the fact that they themselves are fully immersed within the confines of neoliberalism," and asserted, "It’s a fantasy that you could fundamentally shift the building blocks of your economy without engaging with politics."

Excerpts from interview in Sierra:

In her latest book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Simon and Schuster, 2014), Klein argues with passion and scholastic rigor that "our economic system and our planetary system are now at war."

I'm intrigued by your idea that too many environmentalists shy away from radical ideas.

The real divide between liberals and radicals is how they feel about mass movements. Because mass movements are messy. You can have people with very similar goals, but if your model of social change is that it should come from a combination of smart leaders and technocratic policy options, maybe a little bit of lobbying ...

...some lawsuits...

Yeah, then you're going to be threatened by the messiness of mass movements. Radicals tend to believe that change comes when you have these messy shifts from below, and those shifts make space for people to work in the center. I don't think that enough credit is given—even in the way that the environmental movement tells its own story—to the huge cultural shift of the 1960s and how it paved the way for the legal and policy victories that followed. They say, "We had a big Earth Day in 1970, and then we got a lot of laws passed." No. Earth Day happened only because of all the far more radical stuff that came earlier—the whole panoply of counterculture ideas and the normalization of deep questioning of the capitalist system. That created a context to split the difference. It enabled us to moderate free enterprise with environmental laws. And because we tell that story wrong, we devalue people who are out there today with radical ideas. Like right now, I'm getting so much pushback for just talking about capitalism. "No, no. You're not supposed to say the word."

You told Rolling Stone that you purposefully avoided going into solutions in this book, especially physical solutions.

The book starts from the premise that technology isn't the thing that's blocking us.

Interview by Bill Lueders, from The Progressive, December 2015/January 2016

"Climate change isn't an 'issue' to add to the list of things to worry about, next to healthcare and taxes," Klein writes. "It's a civilizational wake-up call. A powerful message—spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinction—telling us that we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet. Telling us that we need to evolve."

Q: You suggest that the real problem driving climate change is not human nature or even greenhouse gases, but a story that we’ve been telling ourselves for the last 400 years. Can you elaborate?

Klein: Climate change, among other things, is a narrative crisis. And that narrative was born in the 1600s, championed by the likes of Francis Bacon and René Descartes. They had this idea, revolutionary at the time, that the earth was not this living system, a mother to be feared and revered, but rather this inert thing, but which all could be known, and from which wealth could be extracted infinitely.

But the idea that we could dominate nature and act without consequence is exploded by climate change. Climate change puts humans in our place in a way that is profoundly disturbing to a dominance-based worldview. But it is something to be embraced, if you have a worldview based on interconnection—which is increasingly where most scientists are.

Q: You note that climate change will affect poorer countries disproportionately and force the mass exodus of people from low-lying island states and sub-Saharan Africa, asking, "How will we treat the climate change refugees who arrive on our shores in leaky boats?" Does the current wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in Hungary and among Republican presidential candidates suggest an answer?

Klein: When we think about a hotter future, it is not just about the heat, the drought, and the storms. It's also about societies becoming meaner, because that is what a winner-takes-all type of capitalist society does in the face of scarcity. And we are seeing this now in the refugee crisis, absolutely. That crisis has its roots in resource wars, in which access to fossil fuels played a central role. And one of the accelerants of the civil conflict in Syria was climate change. Syria experienced a record drought in the years leading up to this outbreak of violence.

We're seeing the best and the worst of what humans are capable of. Humans are complex. Humans are selfish and greedy and racist and awful and beautiful and filled with solidarity and compassion all at the same time. And different systems light up different parts of ourselves. So we’ve seen the turning of our backs on a refugee crisis we had a major hand in creating; and we've also seen tremendous acts of generosity—thousands of people in Iceland and Germany opening their homes, and community organizing to sponsor refugees.

We need to recognize that complexity and think about what systems bring out our better selves, versus our worst selves, because that will determine how we respond to this crisis.

Q: In a commencement address you gave at the College of the Atlantic, you said, "The hard truth is that the answer to the question 'What can I, as an individual, do to stop climate change?' is: nothing." Explain what you mean by this.

Klein: Part of what we are up against is the triumph of market logic—this idea that our greatest power is as consumers. There are definitely things that you can do as an individual that will minimize your contribution to the problem: You can stop eating meat, you can stop flying, you can turn your life into a low-carbon experiment if you want to. But those acts as individuals are no match for this transformation of the global economy that we are talking about.

Individual actions matter, in that they prove to us that the things we need to do to lower our emissions actually improve our quality of life—make us healthier, make us happier. This sets an example for others and fuels us in our political work. But it isn’t a substitute for political work.

Excerpts from: THE INTERVIEW. By: MACDONALD, NANCY, Maclean's, 00249262, 9/22/2014, Vol. 127, Issue 37, in the month that This Changes Everything was published

Q: Are we screwed?

A: I feel like one of the ways in which we are screwed is that a lot of people have come to the conclusion that we are, and therefore it's not even worth trying. Yes, if we stay on the road we are on, we are [screwed]. But that doesn't mean we can't grab the wheel and swerve. And I think we can.

Q: But you argue we must also change capitalism, as currently practised.

A: The book isn't "We must do X, Y, Z" -- it isn't a formula. But in order for us to make the kind of progress we need to make in the short amount of time we have left we must confront the reigning, unquestioned ideology that sees privatization as always good, and doesn't question the logic of austerity, doesn't question the logic of pro-corporate, free trade deals that have stood in the way of progress on climate. That's not necessarily the most popular message. But emissions are up 61 percent since we started trying to fix this problem in the early 1990s. Obviously, that strategy isn't working.

--

Q: Why did you did choose to write about your choice to have a baby, and your struggles with infertility? It's deeply personal stuff -- new ground for you.

A: It was a hard decision. Truth is, I was ready to pull that chapter. I kept giving it to people going: "I shouldn't include this, should I?" People kept going: "Absolutely." It was sort of like, "Stop me, please." My fear is that it feels narcissistic to write about one's personal fertility journey when writing a book about such a massive subject matter. But I decided to write it because it did shape my views.

Q: In what way?

A: There was this sort of dialogue going on in my personal life. The five years it took to write the book were the five years I was going through this struggle to keep a pregnancy; then I got pregnant while I was writing the book and had my child, who's two now. At the start I really did try to keep these journeys separate, but there were ways in which they informed each other.

Q: How so?

A: When I went to these fertility treatments -- that ultimately failed -- I'd see these parallels: I'd go to the clinic, then I'd go hang out with these would-be geo-engineers for the weekend in England. I became increasingly interested in the way in which we see the Earth as a machine, and our bodies as machines that can just be pushed. And not accepting any natural limits. And a sort of recklessness to risk.

Q: It also helped alert you to changes in the natural world.

A: The truth is, the fact that I was going through this in my personal life informed how I saw the research. I noticed patterns. I don't think I would have been so attuned to how climate change was impacting the fertility of other species if I didn't have my own fertility problem. I felt it was really valuable for me, personally, to hit a biological boundary. Because I think we tend to see our bodies as so resilient. Just as we have trouble believing the Earth has limits.

Q: You actually felt isolated from the environmental movement when you were struggling to getpregnant.

A: It drove me crazy -- hanging around with environmentalists who were constantly talking about how we were doing this for our kids, and our grandchildren. I found it exclusionary, as somebody who was having trouble having kids. And really strange messaging too, as if we only care about the future for our kids! Then there was this "women as earth mother" idea -- if you can't have kids, does that mean that you don't have a relationship with nature? I was really struggling with this.

Q: You were pretty ambivalent about whether you wanted to have kids yourself. What changed?

A: It was a combination of factors. Part of it was just realizing: "Okay, I've procrastinated for as long as I can." I was 38. I was ambivalent. I wasn't sure I didn't want to. It was kind of in the spirit of "What the hell?" Then I lost my first pregnancy. Then I lost another one. And so on. It was also for me, personally, where I was at after The Shock Doctrine and I had been touring for a couple years. I didn't want to do that -- to keep touring. What had stopped me before was that I could not see how I could do the sort of work I was doing with a small child. I reached a point where I felt like, "If I don't do this work for a few years, that's okay." Still, I think environmentally, it's problematic.

--

Q: You were recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

A: I have a great prognosis, and don't plan on talking about the illness more than that. I hope you understand.

--

Q: I thought you could have painted a more terrifying portrait of what awaits us if we continue to drag our feet. Were you worried about opening yourself to the same critiques you levelled at free marketeers in The Shock Doctrine?

A: It's not that I'm afraid of that critique. It's that I don't want quibbling about the science. This is how a lot of the debate gets derailed. I don't want to be derailed with quibbles about how many hurricanes there were in 2012. If I've failed to impress upon readers the severity of this crisis, that's a failure. I try to paint a picture at the beginning of the book of the stakes -- what it means that we have the World Bank telling us we're on a four-to-six-degree temperature trajectory. To be in decade zero, and out of time. To sort of unpack that at the start of the book, then leave it behind. I even played with having none of it in the book -- not because I'm afraid of it. But because I think people's eyes glaze over a little bit.

I think this is one of the ways in which we have failed to deal with this crisis. We just think we can scare people, and that then they'll become active. Actually scaring the hell out of people makes them want to curl up in a ball.

Q: You've felt a kind of grief over climate fears. Maybe that's too strong a word?

A: No, it's not. I don't feel like that makes me unique. We focus too much on climate deniers and not enough on the more widespread "soft denial." How is it possible to know about this crisis, then forget? What is all this aversion about -- how can we know something so profoundly disturbing and then behave as if it isn't happening? There's a phrase that Argentines used during their dictatorship: We did not know what nobody could deny. Which is this state of knowing and not knowing. I think it has more applicability to the ecological crisis than we might think. Even when people say they don't care, you scratch the surface, and there is terror.

Naomi Klein
She had also been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She declines to talk about it, except to say that treatment has gone well and the prognosis is good.

One obstacle to change is liberals themselves. "There’s a lot of discourse devoted to how we’re going to deal with these right-wing climate deniers," she says. "But we need to deal with the liberal version of denial, which is 'It's nothing, really. We can change our light bulbs and drive hybrids and have carbon trading, and we don’t have to change anything fundamental.'"

Even if the final text of his encyclical Laudato Si or "Praised Be"(from a prayer by St. Francis of Assisi), set to be released by the Vatican on June 19, differs in some details from the version that was leaked this week, the over-all direction is clear. Indeed, the press conference set for that day will feature, among others, Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and Canadian activist Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate. The presence of Klein, a non-Catholic, also signals Francis's belief that response to the potential effects of climate change is not only a matter of Catholic faith and morality.

"I'm going to the Vatican," Klein says, with a note of surprise in her voice, "to share a press conference with Cardinal Turkson. That's something I never thought I'd say -- so something is definitely changing."

New Statesman quasi-interview
citation:


 * first four paragraphs not copied here

Klein is in London promoting her new book, On Fire, a crescendo of essays from the past ten years that concludes with an argument for the Green New Deal. The proposal, which encompasses dramatic increases in green energy investment and green jobs creation, is gaining political sway on both sides of the Atlantic.

We meet for coffee in the bar of an expensive hotel that smells like pot-pourri; outside, Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters are defying a ban initiated by the Metropolitan Police. The fortnight preceding our meeting, XR activists seized central London in a string of colourful uprisings. "It feels like one of those moments where everything could tip very quickly," she tells me. "This is not tapping into people who saw themselves as climate activists – it's tapping into something much broader."

Klein, 49, has done more to popularise the inseparability of capitalism and climate change than perhaps any other author. In a series of books published over the past decade, she documented the human costs of ecological plunder and argued that environmental breakdown is rooted in capitalism's quest for perpetual growth. "We have a handful of years to turn this around, and in those handful of years, I'm all in, all the time," she says. Listening to her, it's possible to feel a sense of calm; where much of the discourse about climate change redounds to the apocalyptic script of a climate-fiction novel, she has a resolute sense not only of what's at stake, but of how we might fix it.

Klein has long railed against the dangers of "disaster capitalism". In The Shock Doctrine (2007), she traced how elites exploited national crises and natural disasters to push through free-market policies. Today, she worries that without a concrete plan, climate activists may leave open the door to a similar possibility. "I'm extremely wary of just asking powerful interests to declare [a] climate emergency, and deferring the question of what we mean by climate action," she says.

Though Klein commends XR, which has forced the UK government to declare a climate emergency and commit to citizens' assemblies, she worries that "asking those in power to declare an emergency and waiting to articulate what their solutions should be" could open up a "vacuum". "The time for simply calling for ‘action', amorphous action, has passed," she adds.

Mainstream environmentalism has long been criticised for being too elite, too concerned with pristine wilderness and charismatic species, and too apathetic to the reality that environmental harms are distributed along poverty and race lines.

In the US, for example, people of colour live with 66 per cent more air pollution than white citizens. Klein's contention is that we should be learning from the movements at the front lines of environmental change.

One senses her frustration at big environmental groups that have avoided talking about the economic roots of climate breakdown. "The most well-funded green groups in the world are more focused on wilderness; they're more focused on animals, on conservation. They take a tonne of money from fossil fuel companies, mining companies, and their whole business model is to shake down the extractive sectors and banks, and to... protect patches of wilderness," Klein says.

Fixating on "nature" and "wilderness" rather than the ground under our feet can descend into something more troubling: the protection of a nativist social order. In On Fire, Klein argues that we're already living through the dawn of climate barbarism, with terrorists such as the Christchurch gunman openly identifying as "eco-fascists". "There's a strong strain of ‘close it down, protect our own'," she says. "Hypernationalism and native protectionism [are] a very likely outcome in many majority-white countries."

"People know, whether they link it to climate change or not, that we are in an era of mass migration and that the space in which it is going to be safe for humans to live on this planet is contracting. It will continue to contract," she says. "This is why it's important to have a plan."

Special for USA TODAY
citation:


 * this about Sep 2014 Climate March on Sunday and Wall Street March on Monday * * *


 * refs DiCaprio at Sunday march (no excerpts added here; add this cite to DiCaprio sentence)


 * refs Kline at Monday march
 * refs her Guadian column previous week

After Sunday's March, a smaller protest on Monday, Flood Wall Street, resulted in more than a hundred arrests after protesters at the end of the day ignored police orders to disperse.

One of the speakers at Monday's protest, Canadian journalist Naomi Klein, has cast the debate over climate change as a clash between "deregulated capitalism" and the welfare of mankind in her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, which was published last week.

"We have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism," she writes in the book, "the reigning ideology for the entire period we have been struggling to find a way out of this crisis."

Of course Klein, author of an earlier book called Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, is an avowed opponent of neoliberalism in general for what she sees as its pernicious effects on society, but that is not the reason she blames if for the lack of action on climate change.

"It's part of the same story, the same logic," she said on MSNBC last week. It is the result of an ideology, she says, "that values nothing but profit."

Effective action against climate change requires the type of government regulation that undermines the free market ideology currently driving companies, Wall Street, and -- to the extent that politicians are hostage to big-money interests -- Washington.

"We need to break a whole bunch of the free market rules that these guys hold very dear," she told Chris Hayes in the television interview. "We need to regulate."

* * * * *

Against this backdrop, at a time when airstrikes in Syria and an Ebola outbreak in Africa upstage the longer term crisis posed by climate change, President Obama's pledge at the U.N. to take account of climate change in U.S. development aid seemed woefully inadequate as a response.

Klein had anticipated this inadequacy in her Guardian column last week.

"It's not simply that our leaders aren't leading us -- at an appropriate gallop -- away from fossil fuels and towards the renewable energy revolution that is both technologically and economically feasible," she wrote.

"It's that most of them are doubling down on the very energy sources that are most responsible for the crisis, cheering on the extractive industries as they dig up the most greenhouse gas-intensive fossil fuels on the planet: oil from the tar sands, gas from fracking, extra-dirty lignite coal."

This is a fairly apt description of Obama, who never fails to boast in his State of the Union speeches about the U.S. boom in natural gas production from hydraulic fracturing, and whose administration has yet to take a stand on the Keystone XL pipeline that will support production of tar sands oil in Canada.

Given this inaction by government leaders, Klein says, people seek refuge in "mental tricks," finding excuses, grasping at potential technological fixes or simply putting their heads in the sand.

Whether the demonstrations in New York mark some sort of turning point in the climate change debate remains to be seen. But it has now been joined to the populist groundswell against rogue banks on Wall Street, the growing gap in inequality of incomes and opportunity, and resentment that corporate money has paralyzed Washington.

The type of revolution in government action needed to cope with climate change and other social ills is what threatens corporate interests the most and makes them so desperate in their opposition, Klein says, even though this change could bring numerous benefits to society.

"It's not the end of the world," she said of the needed government activism in her MSNBC interview. "It's the end of their world."

Other clips
Klein served on the board of directors of the non-profit group 350.org from April 7, 2011, through the fiscal year ending September 2018

'Q&A with Barbara Kingsolver in New Statesman

Barbara Kingsolver page does not have a section on her activitism, but does have a section on eating locally.

What was the last book that changed your thinking? This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein. She clarifies the motives of the foundations that spend billions promoting climate change denial in media and politics. It’s not just oil companies, it’s think tanks of moneyed conservatives. I thought they were greedy and ignorant, but I was wrong about the latter, they grasped the truth very early: that the health of the planet is incompatible with unlimited market-driven capitalism. These professional deniers really do know they’re taking down the ship.