Voices From the Gulf: LaTosha Brown

LaTosha Brown is the executive director of the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health.

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By Nicole Wallace

Hurricane Katrina laid bare the suffering caused by poverty and racism on the Gulf Coast.

Many nonprofit leaders had hoped that the destruction caused by the storm would serve as an opportunity to rebuild the region with an eye toward greater equity, but that dream has largely gone unrealized, says LaTosha Brown, executive director of the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health.

Five years after Katrina, low-wage workers and people of color on the Gulf Coast are still struggling to rebuild their lives—and many still haven’t been able to return to the region, says Ms. Brown.

“It’s all an extension of a very strong history of racism and classism,” she says. “We’re seeing that play out in the recovery process.”