September 3, 2005 - The President did not see them. He did not visit them dying at the trauma center set up at Armstrong International Airport. He did not visit them while they boarded buses at the Superdome or waited for food and water at the Convention Center. Who were they? The are the people we never see; the people who gather the dirty dishes after we pay the check; the people who fold towels into swans and place the chocolates on the pillows of the turned down bed; who pick up the used bedpans and replace the dirty hospital sheets. They pick up the trash from the streets and dig up the sewers. They are the people who carry the load for the rest of us who are too proud; too rich; too connected to carry it for ourselves. They are the people too poor; too sick; and too tired to get out of town. You don’t really see them as they go about their days. They are hidden in plain sight; these people who make a modern city work and attract visitors to 300 years of history,

On an ordinary day they walk to work or ride the bus. They don’t earn enough to afford a car or to fill its gas tank if they had one. What they earn today buys tomorrow’s groceries and there isn’t enough left to buy a ticket out of town. They hunker down and hope for the best and then they pray. Oh, yes, they pray and they trust in the Lord and in the Man’s promises. On an ordinary day they are too insignificant; too poor; too Black to matter. On an ordinary day they are the invisible Americans who make the country run.

But Monday was not an ordinary day. Nor was Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday an ordinary day. On those days you saw them through the lenses of television cameras. You saw them at the Superdome; at the Convention Center. You saw them clinging to air beds and packing foam. You saw them huddled on highway overpasses after wading through the toxic stew that flooded them out of their homes. You saw them and heard them cry out but the head of FEMA did not get the word that they were there until Thursday afternoon. You saw them lying dead on the sidewalk. You knew that they were there and they hungered . You knew that they were there and they thirsted. You knew that they were sick and that no one had come to them. The head of FEMA did not. They were invisible to him; too poor; too insignificant; too Black to matter.

The President did see Trent Lott and stood with him on the ruins of his Mississippi home and promised to visit him again in the Senator’s rebuilt house. The President did embrace two carefully coifed sisters for the cameras and told them to be of good heart. He told them to hang in there. "I am satisfied with the response, I'm not satisfied with all the results”, he said. "There’s a lot of people working hard, and they're making good progress", he said. Then he flew back to the White House in time for dinner.