2020 profoundly impacted our community, challenging each of us uniquely. For the first time in over a century, our country struggled to contain a deadly pandemic, and many of us lost loved ones. In a city known for coming together, we had to stay apart to keep each other safe. Within weeks of our city’s largest celebration, many of our neighbors fell ill with the novel coronavirus. An early hotspot for the COVID-19 pandemic, New Orleans reached 2,270 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 by May 1st. By the end of 2020, that number climbed to 20,146 cases with 637 deaths. As New Orleanians, we’re not strangers to adversity. 2020 marked fifteen years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall, dispersing the city and exposing fault lines, fractured systems, and the resilience of our community. A decade and a half later, our city was threatened again. In the face of novel challenges, New Orleanians bound together once again, finding new ways to come together while staying apart. Through activism for Black lives, mutual aid groups, and virtual convenings, New Orleanians committed to caring for one another in an isolating year.
Click here to read the report that endeavors to explain how our criminal courts functioned during a chaotic year and how we as a community monitored it.
