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As a an ACORN organizer born and raised in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, Tanya Harris shares a firsthand experience of what has happened--and what still needs to happen--since the hurricane.
Tanya Harris, head organizer for the New Orleans chapter of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), was born and raised in New Orleans to a family rooted in the Lower Ninth Ward community. Her family has belonged to ACORN for 25 years, and through her own work, Harris is on the forefront of the struggle for justice, fairness, and equality in the rebuilding process and for the right of return for all residents. Most recently she has led ACORN campaigns including Living Wage, Get Out the Vote for post-Katrina New Orleans, and an effort to save the historic Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood. She is the former chair of the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association, a network of thousands of displaced New Orleans residents organizing to take action on social injustice issues associated with the disaster, and she worked previously with community groups including an educational program geared toward disadvantaged youths and the Lower Ninth Ward Neighborhood Council. Harris is the winner of Tides Foundation's 2007 Jane Bagley Lehman Award and ACORN's 2007 People of Color Caucus George Wiley Award for Organizing Excellence.
What is your momentum? The fact that I can provide low-to-moderate income people with the tools to organize and to win justice and a better quality of life for themselves, their families, and their communities is a motivating factor in all the work that I do.
