John A. Powell, keynote speaker for the summit on structural racism and recovery, speaks with New Orleans activists after his talk.

Audience members, left to right, Clifford Montgomery, Ted Quant and Sister Lori Schaff listen to Powell's ideas about mapping out strategic opportunities for change.

Attendees find the summit -- sponsored by Tulane's Institute for the Study of Race and Poverty under the umbrella of the Partnership for the Transformation of Urban Communities -- a welcome place to interact. (Photos by Paula Burch-Celentano)

"All the straws broke the camel's back."

That's the way John A. Powell, keynote speaker at the first summit of Tulane's Institute for the Study of Race and Poverty, explained the cumulative, systemic failures of institutions to address the needs of people before, during and after Hurricane Katrina.

One factor alone cannot account for the disaster and disastrous response to storm victims' plight, Powell -- who usually spells his name in all lowercase letters -- told an audience of nearly 85 New Orleans community activists invited to the summit on Monday (March 12) in the Tulane Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life.

Pinning the failures on a single cause is "like asking what caused the damage to your house? The wind? The water? The faulty foundation? It's not any one thing."

Powell is the executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University and an internationally recognized authority on civil rights and civil liberties.

What we've learned from Katrina is that our institutions are failing us, said Powell.

But that failure can be overcome and progress made to allow people access to improved circumstances if the right, strategic investments are made in communities, institutions and individuals. The good news is, said Powell, "Lives can be made better."

The first step toward changing the effectiveness of our institutions is to acknowledge that we all are linked, said Powell. A "new way of knowing" is needed.

The focus of the summit was "structural racism." Powell explained the difference between the racism of a Bull Conner-like individual and the structural racism of today. Bull Conner was the infamous Birmingham, Ala., police commissioner who turned fire hoses and attack dogs on peaceful civil rights marchers in 1963.

In simple terms, "If we didn't see Bull Conner, we didn't see racism," said Powell. Without individual racists to blame, the complexity of structural racism is harder to understand. But structural racism exists in the flawed interactions between institutions that are ostensibly helping people.

As things stand now, there is no formal relationship between schools, jobs, housing, environmental agencies. People involved in these areas of the community need someplace to come together. And Powell suggested that Tulane's Institute for the Study of Race and Poverty and its parent organization, the Tulane Partnership for the Transformation of Urban Communities are a good place to start.

That the partnership and institute can promote a network to encourage change is Tulane's goal, said Tulane President Scott Cowen in his opening remarks for the summit, which included a daylong agenda of panel discussions by community activists.

"We want to make a difference at ground level beyond research and education," said Cowen. The "structural racism" summit was the first of three summits slated for this year and supported by a Ford Foundation grant. By reaching out to the New Orleans community, the institute is defining its mission of promoting social justice, according to Joel Devine, professor of sociology and director of the partnership. Rebecca Chaisson, clinical assistant professor of social work, is interim director of the institute.