Narvalee Audrey Copelin

Abstract

Born in 1926, Narvalee Copelin grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward at a time when it abounded with green space, where struggling first-time homeowners could stake their claim to the American dream. The Lower Ninth Ward is legendary for producing activists who challenged segregation directly.1 Narvalee inherited her organizing spirit from her father, Reverend Noah Copelin, and passed it on to her nephews, Kenneth and Keith Ferdinand and Kalamu ya Salaam (see chapters eleven and twelve). Drawn to water from a young age, Narvalee served in the Navy before becoming a high school business teacher. A world traveler, a dancer, and a devoted sports fan, Narvalee speaks as an expatriate who left New Orleans many years before Katrina. This interview took place at Narvalee’s ranch-style home in Los Angeles on June 19, 2006? Her immaculate house was furnished with custom-made furniture purchased in the late 1960s. Evidence of her recent eightieth-birthday celebration filled the living room. The wood-paneled den was lined with sketches from Brazil and a modernist print of Kenneth Ferdinand playing the trumpet. During the interview conducted at the dining room table, Narvalee was surrounded by family scrapbooks and photo albums with rare photos dating back to the 1800s. Narvalee, a stylish woman whose favorite color is purple, was radiant and animated when she discussed her family and the Lower Ninth Ward of her past. By contrast, post-Katrina memories were spoken slowly and suffused with a heavy sense of loss. Narvalee’s memories were of growing up a pastor’s daughter in the depression-era Lower Ninth Ward before the period of white flight, the epidemic of cocaine, heroin, and other drugs, and the deterioration of the neighborhood’s infrastructure. The portrait she draws of her father, mentor to several generations of young people from the Lower Ninth Ward, provides a glimpse of the unique spirit of the neighborhood in earlier days. Even prominent Republican Baptist preachers possessed a dancing spirit, dressed to kill, and appreciated the power of music. Emotionally, Narvalee never left New Orleans, where she maintains close ties with her friends and family to this day. She reminds us of the extent to which Katrina-related loss and death among the elderly reverberate among communities of the heart irrespective of the physical miles separating them.