ABSTRACT
When one enters the public library in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, there is an easel. The easel displays a large photograph. On one side is a picture of the waterlogged library that was destroyed when more than 20 feet of water surged through the neighborhood from a levee breach after the storm in 2005. The other side has a picture of the renovated library, a mirror image of the current space (Field-notes, 2008). The photograph provides a visual marker of time and space—a kind of "then" and "now"—and suggests a complex history. Educational struggles go back more than half a century in the 9th Ward and include the establishment of Martin Luther King Elementary School (hereafter King Elementary), which shares space with the public library and came into being over a decade before the events of 2005.
