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Tavis: Jonathan Demme, here we are in New Orleans. Good to see you.

Jonathan Demme: Good to see you, too, Tavis.

Tavis: Glad to have you here. This is, of course, night one of what is going to be a five-night series of "Right to Return: New Home Movies from the Lower Ninth Ward." Tonight, as I mentioned a moment ago, we're going to meet Antoinette K-Doe.

Demme: Right.

Tavis: But also a brother named Pastor Mel.

Demme: Pastor Melvin Jones.

Tavis: Tell me tonight about these two persons we're going to meet here in just a moment.

Demme: Okay, will do. Well, these are the people that Danny Wolf and Abdul Franklin and I met the very first time we came down to New Orleans. And we came out into the neighborhoods with our cameras and we had been given a few phone numbers, so we're going to meet, yeah, Antoinette, who's the brains behind the legendary Mother-In-Law Lounge and Pastor Melvin Jones, who will pop up again over the course of the week.

And the two people - two cousins, Wayne and Laurence, the first people that we met leaving the airport, and we saw some guys cleaning up and we said, "Hey, we're from New York, we're trying to make a movie down here, and they exploded with openness and stuff for us and got us off going and made us feel like this is going to be okay. And also there's a young man from Austin, Texas, named Brandon Darby who's been down here doing volunteer work. A very angry, fabulous young guy.

Tavis: It's night one of "Right to Return: New Home Movies from the Lower Ninth Ward," we're delighted that you are here. Here now, the stories that we want to share with you, courtesy of Academy Award winner Jonathan Demme.

Lawrence Gaspar: This is a disaster. If you look at this city, this city is underwater, 30 feet of water, you had over a thousand people that died, they got families that's displaced, they still can't find them. They had bodies floating in this area here where it looked like King Kong stepped on a lot of the houses, man. You see houses that look like it's been picked up off the foundation and floated - just floated with the water, man, into the middle of the street.

There is no roofs. The roofs are just blown all over the place. New Orleans really, really, really needs the help of the world. We need worldwide help, right now.

Male Two: We need all the manpower we can get.

Gaspar: We need all the manpower we can get, right here in the Big Easy. This is the Big Easy, man. Tourism is down, the economy is down. It look like the city that went bankrupt to me, man. All the areas are abandoned, there's no people living in the areas. We have people scattered all over the world from Texas to Atlanta to Arizona to California to Miami to Mexico, everywhere. They everywhere. We all scattered. A lot of people that lost contact with their families and their children and their relatives.

We have a lot of dead folks, all due to Ms. Katrina. Katrina was a bad mamma-jamma. So let's help rebuild America, and New Orleans. A part of America. God bless ya'll and keep you, but Mr. President, we want you to know we need your help. We need your help, man. Help us out, 'cause we need it. And God bless you, too. (Laughter)

Demme: But you literally saw a shark?

Female One: Yes, I literally saw a shark. The wind was bad, and I was worried about one pine tree. But John's going to have it taken down. But I was - it started leaning, I said, "Oh, Lord." The oak trees were doing the Twist. As it was pouring in through my door on the sides of the door and everything, she said "Look out your window."

I didn't have - I looked out the window and the water was already up, like, this high. It was wild.

Gaspar: She's a survivor. It's so bad -

"Female One:" That's right.

Gaspar: - to where they made a movie. A Katrina movie. It's been edited. And they have a movie about Katrina.

Female One: Over by the green bridge?

Gaspar: Right.

Female One: The water came from there.

Gaspar: Right.

Female One: Near the (unintelligible).

Gaspar: And instead of building another category three levee, they need to build a category five levee. Do it right the first time, and we don't have them problems again.

Male Two: Make it a category 10. (Laughter)

Gaspar: Make it a category five, six, or seven.

Female One: Or do like they do in the Netherlands.

Gaspar: They're from New York; they're talking about building a category three. That's what this guy ripped down. That don't make any sense. We have hurricane season here every year. So do it right the first time, and we don't have them problems no more. That'll eliminate the headaches.

Female One: Hi, Charles.

Gaspar: 'Cause if you build another three and we get another five hurricane, it's going to be the same thing over again. God bless America. (Laughter)

Male Three: Well, that remains to be seen but I think she's (unintelligible) from New Orleans and then that's the end of her.

Male Four: So you're saying 45 senators are going to be going because they…

Male Three: (Unintelligible) in the state of Louisiana, she will be (unintelligible). (Crosstalk.)

Male Four: The whole situation is different. She's lost her political base in New Orleans.

Male Three: (Unintelligible.)

Male Four: Right, but (unintelligible).

Male Three: (Unintelligible, crosstalk.)

Antoinette K-Doe: I tell you what. My mom used to dance off that song, and I remember it before I even met K-Doe, my mom, my aunt, and all of them. But my mom, she loved the song "Motherly Love." She loved it, all K-Doe's music. She loved K-Doe, and K-Doe loved (unintelligible). And I think that's really, really made K-Doe and I so close, because you know when a man accept your mother, you can't help but fall in love with him.

And my mom was crazy. But they were like two peas in a pail. Now the only thing different between them two and me is K-Doe can do anything he wanted to me. It was okay with my mom. But if I did something to him, it's like she wanted to throw a cup at me or something. So (unintelligible) K-Doe was pretty, pretty tight.

And a question that I get asked a lot is "Is that song about your mother?" (Laughs) I said, "No, that's about his first mother." He said when he sung the song "Mother-In-Law," it was very painful for him. But he had to not show it on his face 'cause his fans (unintelligible). 'Cause it was a true song. But he said when he did the song, his mother-in-law tried to sue him.

Took him to court. But he didn't call her name. He said mother-in-law, and he said he bought five copies and mailed it to her. (Unintelligible.) But I wish I had known her. I stayed in seven days, and that was a long time where you cannot get out and stuff like that. And finally I heard that the president was sending in the National Guards. And I remember being trapped in (unintelligible) the National Guards was the one down there rescuing everybody.

And then I started seeing the helicopters flying over, which a lot of people were traveling on top of the bridge. And I imagined that they were rescuing them from the Lower Ninth Ward (unintelligible) etc., etc., and bringing them to the bridge to just cross over the bridge to get to the Superdome or wherever they were going to safety, because that's sort of what they did for Betsy.

And it was just a lot of people up on the bridge. Kids, old people. I've seen two people die in their wheelchair from the bridge and stuff like that. And it was really sad. And then the helicopters started dropping food and water to the people, and then they came by on the sixth day to see about wanting to evacuate, to get us out.

And I said "No, I think I can last a couple more days due to the fact I can hear people on my left screaming and hollering and babies, and I knew half of my neighbors around me are senior citizens and about six of them are in wheelchairs. So I've got - that they need to get to safety first. And so we stayed. And then they came back and they said, "Well, you have to leave because it's mandatory now."

Well, I did hear that on the radio. When I returned back - I think I came back three, maybe four weeks after, they didn't even break into my place. It was just the way that I let it, except Katrina broke in and came in with all her water. For starters, everything was all ramshack, 'cause the water moves your furniture. And I had two deep freezers back there that turned over with fish and all that, so I don't have to tell you what it really smelled like.

So what I did is I had some fans came over and helped me to take out the beer boxes and refrigerators and stuff like that. But far as cleaning the walls and all like that, I did it myself. Because nobody could help anybody, everybody was down. And that's the reason why I had the hearse out there, because I could carry my wheelbarrow (unintelligible) needed it to do whatever I had to do.

As far as this lounge, it will come back. The number one thing that's really facing me that's really hard is to get an electrician here. Because my understanding is the city only have a few licensed electricians, and I've been on so much waiting lists. I had spoke with another guy and he put me on, like, six weeks and then he had to call and he said, I just can't get to you, Ms. K-Doe, I'm so busy.

And that's understandable. And once you get a licensed electrician then he have to sign off to Energy, which is our electric people here. And then Energy will send their licensed electrician out, and quote-unquote hope everything is okay. Then they'll turn the lights on. And I have no idea when it's going to be. And I'm not the only one in the city waiting for a licensed electrician.

And a lot of thing is, I don't know why the city will not allow licensed electricians from somewhere else to come in and give people a hand, because we've been through the cold months, and thank God, God gave us good weather. But how are we going to survive without air conditioning? And that's the thing, so I don't know. So I - and I guess after I get back, then I can start going up with the sheetrock or whatever else I need.

But I can't do anything till it's wired. And they have to issue you a permit, and I've been up there four days trying to get a permit, and it's like three to 500 people up there - long lines, trying to get permits to do something. So all I can do is clean it out and keep it as clean as I could. It's real dusty. But that's all I can do.

Pastor Melvin Jones: Growing up here all my life, hurricanes don't bother me. We've gone through Betsy, all of the hurricanes that have come through. So that really didn't bother me that the hurricanes come. But I called Mom, I said, "Mom, ya'll need to get out of here." I called Ms. Clara. My fiancée at the time, I said, "Clara, I want you to pack up."

But I told the brothers that I was going to stay, and I told them that you didn't have to stay with me, you needed to go, you needed to go. But 10 of the brothers, Brother Dwight, Brother Leroy there, some of the brothers that are still left, they say "Pastor, we staying with you. Mike went over to his house and then he heard people hollering for help.

Came back, Brother Dwight went over with him; they rescued some ladies then and brought them over here. As Brother Dwight said, the water was four feet on this corner, four feet on this corner. Now we wound up with a foot and a half of water in here; that was after we left. But while we were, the water didn't come in here. And we brought people in, brothers.

We brought people in, we fed them, we had a couple of old ladies who were the first people who we brought in. We got them clothes, fed them, and then we just started fanning out in the community and bringing people in. We rescued about 70 people. Myself and a brother by the name of Chris Joyner who's at seminary, we had a little boat with a little motor on it.

We went out the back gate of the seminary down (unintelligible). Lee remembers all that, and load it all in a boat, and he would put the ropes on his back. He was a soldier, and he hung (unintelligible) that whole time. Because if the White guy (unintelligible) (laughs) sometime, 'cause we pushed ourselves to the point of exhaustion.

My name is Pastor Mel. They call me Pastor Mel; my name is Mel Jones. I grew up here in New Orleans and first in the Lafitte project and then they had moved on to the first - it was the first Black subdivision in the south, Pontchartrain Court, which is now destroyed through the hurricane. But grew up out there, and went to John F. Kennedy High School, and that was in the area of integration.

And we came together with the students there. Then after that, I went into business for myself; went to college for a couple of years, went into business for myself. After I went into business, did very well. Ran political campaigns, my own nightclub, foreign company, flower shops - anything to do to make money. My dream was to become a millionaire and wound up in the nightclub business.

Started drinking a lot, started using drugs. And everything went downhill from there. I started snorting cocaine, then smoking crack. Lost my family, lost everything that I owned, but I gained everything. During that time that I was living on the streets - lived on the streets for three years. During that time, I got to know God.

Know God through Jesus Christ his son, and then God took me off of the street - off of the street, and put me in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Had no money, had no nothing. Took me out of a homeless shelter, put me right into the seminary, because I wanted to - I desired to sincerely know God. And I have an undergraduate degree in pastoral ministries, general studies at the seminary, and psychology and I'm into my master's on psychology and Christian counsel.

We are people that the world discounts because some would look at us in alcoholics, as drug addicts, 'cause that's the background that we come from. People who society would say that are nothing, will be nothing - I'll challenge them any time. And I'll put my men against anybody's men when it comes down.

When the going gets tough, you brothers know how to hang in there, because you already been in tough situations. You've already had a tough life. I don't want some Harvard Ph.D. with me when I gotta go and rescue and help somebody. You brothers hung with it, we did it together, we rescued those people, and we still here helping the community.

My feeling is that they don't want New Orleans east and the Ninth Ward to come back is because it's a large African American population and some of them were poor, but New Orleans east was an affluent, very affluent community, very vibrant community. And I've heard some pretty reliable - through some pretty reliable sources that what the federal government wants to do is build high-rise condominiums along the river down to Holy Cross, wait it out so that the people in those areas don't come back, and then shore up the levees to what they need to be and then bring in condominiums, golf courses.

'Cause New Orleans is landlocked. You have no more land here. Another word that I've heard used for the city, they want to make it a boutique city where you come in and you've got entertainment, good food, you've got gambling and all of this, and then you go back to your home. But what about the people that live here? What about us?

And I gotta tell you that we're going to fight. There's just no way that even if we are a house with no houses around us for a block or two, that's not bad. People live like that in the country. So that jack-o-lantern effect that they said would happen if people don't come back, that's okay. It'll just give the people who live here a little bit more room, all right?

Not to say that it's not going to redevelop, and some of those people will buy the lots on the side of them. They'll build swimming pools; they'll build an area for their children. So even with the jack-o-lantern effect, that's not a problem. People will come back after time and fill that in. But the answer is not government taking the land and then selling it to a developer for them to make sweetheart deals to make mega-bucks.

No, that's not the answer, and we're not going to go for it. We're going to stand. A lot of people coming back; some are not. They found other opportunities and other ways. God bless them and we're glad for them. But those of us that God has called to stay in New Orleans, we're going to stay, we're going to fight. We're not going to be on the corners with guns or anything, let's get that straight.

But I know the power of God, and I know what God can do. And God can change the tide to our favor, so we'll be looking forward to that.

Brandon Darby: But for the most part, the mainstream media doesn't talk about this. It hasn't talked about this accurately. Like myself, I came in a boat on the third day to help people and the mainstream media did a lot about it. They're all interested in hearing about a White guy from Austin, but they're not interested - all they tell you about is that there were young, armed Black men here.

They don't tell you the fact that the majority of the young men and women (unintelligible) to save their community and brought food and water to elderly people that stayed. (Unintelligible.)

Demme: What's going on over here on our left, Brandon?

Darby: They're trying to - they say they're fixing the levee. They're fixing the levee. The story's so big, but FEMA basically gave money to the city and the city's distributed aid and fixed places up in a very selective manner. So areas where they want the homeowners to be, they turned power back on, water back on, gas back on, done debris removal.

And areas that developers have wanted or that are predominately Black and they want to move the people out and change the complexion of the city, they've restricted services to. The city's offered them all kinds of money to sell this land so they can widen this canal for shipping and what have you, and the people won't sell the land. And so now that the storm's come, they've shipped them across the country when they could have shipped them across the river.

But they didn't, and they're across the country. They have to battle FEMA constantly to - ‘cause FEMA's threatening to kick them out of the hotels they stay in. People wading through water, standing on rooftops for a week, sometimes 10 days. Knocking holes in their attics. And we watched elderly people die on camera because the government couldn't get a bottle of water to them and it was hot, and they were left to die.

And we all collectively said "Never again, how could this happen in the United States?" And a few months later, we're still doing it to them. The government's still doing it to them; they're still stuck in hotels across the country, about to get kicked out. The conditions (unintelligible) the Superdome, it wasn't - well, we don't hear, but if you do hear, if you're here for five months and you talk to residents, it wasn't a situation where the buses pull up and, like, "Hey, if anybody wants to go to California, to Alameda County, we have space for 2,400 of you. Please step this way, I'm sorry you went through that."

It wasn't that at all. (Unintelligible) with guns saying "Nigger, get on the bus. Get on the bus." "But my mom's -” "Shut up, get on the bus. Get on the bus. Shut up." That's what they were treated like. That's the barge. That's the barge that was left floating freely in this canal through the storm, and it broke through, but this is why there's a certain pattern, if you see it from an aerial view, of how the water rushed in.

A lot of these people couldn't afford to leave or wouldn't leave, 'cause they'd never been anywhere else. The government - the city government, the federal government, says they don't know who this barge belongs to. They don't know who's accountable. And it's like, if you can go to Oklahoma City and find a piece of a car and say who rented the freaking car, how can you not tell me who that barge belongs to?

In this area alone, there's still 400 bodies that they can't account for, but they want to come in and they want to bulldoze the area. If this happened in Florida, an area that was predominately second homes, and there was even one body thought to be out in this mess, they would have people in white suits going through, looking for bones, looking for remains, 'cause it would be respectful.

Announcer: Stay tuned for more from New Orleans as Tavis, Jonathan Demme, and Professor Cornel West pay a visit to some of the people you just met during tonight's episode of "Right to Return."

Demme: Hello.

K-Doe: Hi, how you doing? Welcome back to the lounge. How you doing? Love you so much.

Tavis: In the lounge. I'm Tavis, how are you?

K-Doe: Oh, just fine.

Tavis: It's a pleasure to meet you. Dr. Cornel West.

Cornel West: How are you?

K-Doe: Dr. Cornel, how you doing?

Tavis: So tell me about your neighborhood, how's your neighborhood coming back?

K-Doe: The neighborhood is coming back real good. The stores, the neighbors are coming back - not all of my neighbors. The supermarkets are not back. But we're doing okay, and we don't have no crime in this area.

Tavis: It's important to you, obviously, to keep the legacy of Ernie K-Doe alive.

K-Doe: Oh, yes, yes, it is. Yes, it is.

Tavis: I get the sense that you live for that.

K-Doe: Yes, yes, I does. I live, eat, and breathe it. My kids doesn't understand it, 'cause they think I should be the grandmother home with the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren. And I'm saying "No, I'm supposed to here running his legacy that he left us with." His legacy's too big to sweep it under the bed somewhere.

Tavis: So that's our show for tonight. Tomorrow night, part two of our look at life here in the Lower Ninth Ward and the struggle to preserve the history of the Mardi Gras Indians.