By Susan Finch
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
Copyright 2006 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company

New Orleans officials and citizen groups sponsoring a wide range of activities to mark the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina gathered at City Hall on Wednesday to tell the world they support one another's efforts to remember the victims of the Aug. 29 storm and share visions for a rebuilt city that offers every resident opportunity and a level playing field.

African American Leadership Project chief Gail Glapion, whose group organized the announcement, said there soon will be hard proof of that solidarity: a calendar listing every one of the commemorative events.

The "unity press conference" drew together Mayor Ray Nagin and leaders of some grassroots groups who criticized a plan — later canceled — to mark the Katrina anniversary with a fireworks display on the riverfront.

"We still mourn and honor the dead," Nagin said. "We cannot and we should not tell each other how to commemorate Katrina," the mayor said.

"The city has a series of solemn events," he said, mentioning an Aug. 29 jazz funeral parade from the Convention Center to the Superdome to honor first responders and the city's rebirth. Nagin has defended the parade against critics who say it's not an appropriate way to commemorate the destructive storm.

Glapion said the wide array of anniversary observances offers a way to "come together to cooperatively acknowledge our losses, our suffering, our mistakes and our hope for the future."

Some of the planned events are forward-looking. There will be an Aug. 25 City Council briefing on progress New Orleans has made in the past year, an Aug. 26 bus "tour of hope" sponsored by ACORN to show the world that New Orleans hasn't given up, and an Aug. 27 NAACP forum at Xavier University on housing and repopulation of the city.

But there will also be many solemn remembrances of lives and homes lost when levees broke, flooding the city and turning its residents into evacuees, many of whom have yet to return.

One of the most dramatic memorials is the brainchild of a coalition of community groups: formation of a human chain around the Superdome, where thousands of residents sought shelter from the storm and suffered for days with inadequate supplies before they were evacuated. A date for the commemoration has not been announced.

Other memorial ceremonies include one Aug. 26 at Algiers Point, where candles will be lit beginning at 8:30 a.m. for each person who died in the storm. The following day at 1 p.m., the Lower 9th Ward Neighborhood Council will assemble at Tennessee Street and Claiborne Avenue to pay tribute to Katrina's victims.

On Aug. 29, there will be several pauses to remember the events of a year ago. Bells will ring at City Hall at 9:38 a.m., the time when the first levee break happened. At that same time, each City Council member will lay a wreath in one of the most devastated neighborhoods in his or her district. At 10:30 a.m., the council will dedicate a granite monument to Katrina's victims at the Mississippi River Heritage Park in the 1100 block of Convention Center Boulevard.

At 10 a.m., near the spot where the Industrial Canal's east levee broke last year, the United Front to Commemorate the Great Flood will stage a ceremony to remember Lower 9th Ward residents who died in Katrina and to encourage residents to continue fighting for the return of evacuees who want to come home.

After the ceremony, participants will march to Congo Square for a Katrina commemoration program.