Da After Part 1 (Seventh Ward)

 Raised in the 7th Ward, a neighborhood that has stood as a cornerstone of the African American community since the 19th century. That legacy remained unbroken, right up until the devastation of Katrina. I spent the majority of my youth in a section we called "Da Box"—the area carved out between St. Bernard, Claiborne, Elysian Fields, and St. Claude. To those of us who lived it, that place was simply H.H.U.

 

My world centered on Touro Street, specifically tha block nestled between Pauger and Frenchmen. It was tha only block in "Da Box" that felt like a sanctuary. While tha surrounding streets were "a fool," Touro itself remained eerily still. It was tha eye of the storm; as long as you stayed in tha center, you were safe. But tha moment you stepped off that block, you were hitting 75-mile-per-hour winds.

Growing up, my home provided everything I needed, though tha things I wanted from the world outside always felt just out of reach, saved only for special occasions. My parents were the definition of hardworking. My mother was a hotel cook, and my father worked for the State of Louisiana, tending to the grass on the levees. Together, they labored to raise three sons through the shifting tides of the 60s to the 90s.

As tha youngest, the "last son" of my era, I came of age during tha late 80s and early 90s, tha years now known as tha "Golden Crack Era". In tha beginning, staying away from that lifestyle was easy because tha neighborhood's transformation was so jarring. I watched people go from struggling to pay basic bills to suddenly flaunting so much wealth that the attention they drew served as a neon sign for their trade.

In those early days, tha violence wasn't yet purely about blood. It began with intimidation and power plays, fistfights, brandishing weapons, and pistol-whippings. I was young and couldn't fully grasp tha mechanics of what was happening, but I could feel the atmosphere curdling.

My era, however, was a different beast. I lived through "murders after murders. By 1994, New Orleans had earned tha grim title of tha Murder Capital. That was tha year I graduated from high school, and tha same year tha Clinton Crime Bill hit tha pavement. Transitioning from a boy to a man amid that wreckage wasn't just a challenge; it was a feat of survival defined entirely by the Crack Era

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