United Houma Nation Faces BP Disaster

By Allida Black on 06/21/2010 @ 03:15 PM

For the past two months, Brenda Dardar Robichaux, chief of the United Houma Nation, has battled to save her tribe and her culture from the oil assaulting its homeland. Spread across five wetland parishes in southeast Louisiana, the 17,000 member tribe is no stranger to struggle. This predominately fishing community had to fight to attend any public school and had to rebuild communities wrecked by Rita and Katrina without any federal disaster support.

Yet the BP oil spill threatens their communities and livelihood in ways that make hurricanes seem like spring showers. Indeed, NPR reported that “perhaps no other group of people stands to lose as much in the Gulf oil spill as the Houma Nation.” Last week Allida Black, chair of our human rights task force, accompanied Chief Robichaux when she testified before the House and presented a detailed, evocative description of the oil spill’s assault on Houma livelihood, food supply and culture. To read Chief Robichuax’s powerful, testimony, click here.

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