Son finds father's unfinished research after Hurricane Katrina

Why this is here: Four dense cardboard boxes of loose papers, saved before Hurricane Katrina, contained the last research for the historian father's unfinished book.

The author discovers his father’s unfinished book project about housing segregation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. His father was a history professor at the University of New Orleans.

He was a leading scholar of 20th-century American housing policy. He worked on a book about Frank Horne and federal segregation programs.

He saved four boxes of research papers before Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The author discovered correspondence about this unfinished book five years later. This project aimed to show how the US built white supremacy into its cities.

Parkinson’s disease severely impacted the father’s ability to write and think clearly. He experienced cognitive decline and physical stiffness.

The author helped gather documents but did not fully grasp the project's scope. The father later told his son, "You can do something with it." After his father's death, the author worked to compile his research.

The father's illness prevented him from completing his final book on Horne. His son and an editor decided to publish his work.

They edited two unpublished chapters for clarity. The author reflects on this compromise to his father's original intent. The author now works on his own book, an offshoot of his father's legacy.