Winner of the 2007 Skipping Stones Honor Award for Multiculturalism
Winner of the Eric Hoffer Award for Best New Writing on Culture
Winner of the 2007 Ben Franklin Award for Multiculturalism
Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Gold Medal for Family & Relationships
Face to Face with Katrina Survivors: A First Responder’s Tribute (November, 2006)lays out in evocative, clear language the stories of the Katrina evacuees. Disputing the common depictions of the media, this first hand description of the survivors reveals there courage and heroism during the storm.
Written by Dr. Lemuel Moyé, M.D., Ph.D., a professor at the University of Texas School of Public Heath and first responder at the Reliant Arena complex, Face to Face with Katrina Survivors: A First Responder’s Tribute describes the courage, and character of the survivors when they arrived in Houston, designated as the primary evacuation site for the New Orleans survivors.
The media fueled characterizations of the departing population as helpless, irresponsible, destructive people. Dr. Moyé was compelled to write their gripping, and overpowering stories based on his first hand encounters with them. Yet despite the continued interest in the Katrina debacle, and this unexplored aspect of the Katrina survivors’ fortitude, publishers repeatedly reacted to his depictions with contempt, sarcasm, and derision.
Dr. Moyé, an African American, persisted in getting the story of the brave survivors out. Engaging the services of a literary agent from San Diego, he insisted that she leave no stone unturned in finding a publisher for his account, to the point of asking her not to market his medical suspense-thriller novel sequence. After many months, a publisher with the same concerns about the evacuees as Dr. Moyé was identified. Thus, the simultaneous efforts of a Jewish agent, African-American author, and Jewish publisher combined to produce the first description in the words of a first responder the evacuees’ patience, their pride, and their conviction to embrace life, whatever it held. This book honors their allegiance to family, to culture, and to each other.