(Deborah Gray White – History) Recent scholarship on African America postulates that the “black community” is fractured and in crisis.  Post-modernism and post-industrialization has forced black America to come up with new strategies to fight racism and achieve equality of opportunity. Yet, there is debate over the dimensions of the problem and the tact to take. Some argue that there is no leadership, others claim that clinging to a “black” identity hinders individual and thus community development, while others claim that blacks no longer require Affirmative Action to achieve equality of opportunity.  Many African Americans have turned to religious institutions and adopted faith based solutions; others have embrace the nationalistic philosophy of self-help uplift, while still others postulate a theory of political blackness as a remedy for what ails black America. Hurricane Katrina put all of these ideas and theories to the test. This workshop should examine the African American response to Katrina in light of the so-called crisis that besets post-Civil Rights and post-modern black Americans.