By Alexis Taylor
AFRO Managing Editor
Recently, the AFRO profiled 32-year-old Chancellor Mason, a Hurricane Katrina survivor from Gulfport, Miss. This week, we explore what life was like for the Mason family in the aftermath of the storm.
As August turned to September in 2005, Chancellor Mason, his older brother, mother and father did what most Black families in Gulfport, Miss. did: they surveyed the damage and tried to get a grip on their new reality.
After riding out Hurricane Katrina in a North Gulfport school, the Mason family returned to their neighborhood on the western side of town. It was unrecognizable.
“There was pure devastation,” said Mason. The home they were renting to own was destroyed and the family dog, Root Beer, was never seen again. Though the storm was over, the nightmare of recovery had only just begun.
Mason told the AFRO he was in awe at how the Black community was left to fend for themselves in a town that was home to an Air Force base, the Naval Construction Battalion Center, the Atlantic Fleet Seabees and the Mississippi National Guard.
“I didn’t see any of them on the streets,” he said. What he did see was shocking.
“They put barbed wire across the railroad tracks,” recalls Mason. “South of the tracks is the richer area, that’s where the big houses are, that’s where the businesses are. Instead of focusing on people that needed help, they were focusing on looters.”
“How many looters were there– compared to all these people that needed help…stuck in their houses, in need of food or water? People [were] injured and they put up barbed wire – and it was there quick…they didn’t even wait,” he said. “The wires were up before they even tried to restore power.”
Mason’s father ended up climbing over this barbed wire to check on his mother-in-law, who fortunately had taken refuge at another family member’s home. The decision saved her life, as Mason’s father came back across the barbed wire with a report that the house he was searching for was gone. An 18-wheeler sat in its place.
The family trekked back to the school in North Gulfport where they had rode out the storm. Survivors tried to quickly cook food left in the school’s refrigerators before it went bad. A church group from Illinois offered hot dogs.
“The National Guard did finally show up, and I remember they were giving one bag of ice per family and one pack of water per family. Mind you, you had to have a car to get in line. You couldn’t walk,” Mason said. “They weren’t giving out food, there were no MREs being given out. There was no food making, there [were] no clothes being given out. I was still in the same clothes I was in when we left the house when the storm started. We hadn’t had a bath.”
“This was five, six days after the storm, and they [were] just getting there,” said Mason.
Twenty years later, he can still see the towers of ice and water in his mind.
“They had stacked all the stuff up…standing in front of it with M16 rifles. As if…if somebody advanced towards them to get ice or water, they would shoot them dead,” said Mason.
As a child, Mason said he didn’t understand. “I was confused. ‘Is this a prison camp?’ ‘Did we not just lose everything?’ All we needed was help,” he says.
As an adult, with eight years of service in the U.S. Navy behind him, Mason says he becomes angry at how he and other survivors were treated.
“I would never treat people the way they were treating us,” Mason told the AFRO. “The way they talked to us…the nonchalant attitude. A lot of them seemed like they didn’t even want to be there. Even with the police – ask the police questions, and they would be like, ‘Well, that’s too bad.’ They were more concerned about pawn shops.”
As the situation deteriorated, a miracle: a family member from Panama City, Fla. appeared.
Mason’s “Aunt Pickle” helped the family secure gasoline and soon the family was on their way to Florida.
After briefly staying with his grandfather, Mason’s family ventured out to Panama City Beach, Fla.
“We ran into a sign that said ‘refugees welcome here,’ so my mom pulled over,” said Mason. “It was a Christian retreat. It looked like a hotel. They gave us clothes. We had food every day– breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
“The ‘refugee thing’ was crazy – how am I a refugee in my own country? – but I give it to Laguna Beach Christian Retreat, they really took care of us. We had lost everything.”
With temporary housing secured, and the school year quickly approaching, retreat organizers had school officials come and register school age children on the grounds.
Mason said the first day of school was a beautiful display of humanity that brought him to tears. Students and teachers knew he was joining the school community and had new clothes, school supplies, gift cards and more for him and his family.
But the facade of kindness soon faded. The generosity of the student body was replaced by racial slurs, and Mason said he became resentful towards his parents and angry for being forced to attend school in a community that was still – even in 2005 – very segregated.
“In Mississippi, it was kind of like an unwritten rule…‘we’re all gonna mind our business.’ That’s kind of what it was. I had one White friend, and even then her parents didn’t want us to be friends,” he said.
Things were different in Florida.
“There, it was blatantly obvious. It was loud and proud–it was to Confederate flags on the back of pickup trucks, picking their kids up from school,” Mason said.
The family returned to Mississippi in October to see if enough progress had been made to return, but they were sorely disappointed.
“Things were even worse than before we left,” said Mason. “A lot of the stores that people would use, like the grocery stores, still weren’t open. You had to go way out of the way to even get groceries. They hadn’t picked up any debris, it just looked terrible.”
Mason said it would take three years for his Gulfport neighborhood to recover. Ultimately, he graduated from a high school in Florida, and joined the Navy. Still, he says his parents never really had a normal life again.
“We struggled so much. The government failed on so many layers. It definitely showed me the reality of this country, ” said Mason. “I saw it then, but I really see it now – how they did not care about us as Americans. If this ever happens again. We need to be better.”
Today, he helps others as a clinical associate in a hospital setting and says he knows he is only alive “by the grace of God.”
“There was somebody that did not make it, that thought they were going to make it,” he said. “Some people literally did not have a choice, so I thank God that we’re still here. We made it through.”
