Perhaps it's adversity that is the mother of invention, as Hurricane Katrina can be partly credited with making a new woman out of a former street-hustling high school dropout who earlier this year became part and parcel of an Academy Award nomination.
Kimberly Rivers Roberts, born into poverty and seeming hopelessness in one of New Orleans' poorest neighborhood, is now a celebrity.
A longtime resident of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, which sustained some of the worst damage from flooding in 2005, Roberts marked the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina — which was on Aug. 29 — with a performance and speaking engagement in the city of her birth.
Virtually everyone knows the story of disaster, destruction, despair, misery, and stumbling government response that followed Katrina.
People are getting an inside, first-hand view of not only the devastation, but of the human spirit that rose above the most difficult of circumstances.
As the storm approached with ferocious wind and rain, Roberts, then 24 years old, and her husband, Scott Roberts, had no means of getting out of the city. They stayed and endured several days of horrific and dangerous conditions alone in their home.
With a recently purchased video camcorder in hand, Roberts captured footage that was later used in the Oscar-nominated documentary "Trouble the Water," directed by Carl Deal and Tia Lessin.
When asked why she chose to stay put when warnings were going out to evacuate, Roberts said, "It was not a decision. It was more of a forced thing because we didn't have the funds to evacuate.
"He (Mayor Ray Nagin) didn't say, 'Get out or die.' And how do you tell people to evacuate and don't provide a way?" Roberts said recently, speaking by phone from her home in New Orleans. "He knew of lot of people here, especially in the Ninth Ward, didn't have cars or money to go anywhere. I was thinking, 'I hope I don't die,' and praying God spare our lives."
Roberts said God answered her prayers and in the process pushed her to a new level of maturity and confidence previously unfathomable to this young woman. In the process of trying to survive flood waters and to help her neighbors with food and shelter, Roberts kept her camcorder rolling until the batteries failed.
"I wanted to film this in order to tell a complete story," she said. "I couldn't believe this was happening. Five days after the levees broke, no one rescued us."
After five days, Roberts said she had to find a way out. Her husband and a longtime friend managed to secure a moving truck, which they used to gather up five families after going through the neighborhood knocking on doors and offering help. Twenty-seven people piled into the truck and made the 200-plus mile trip to a shelter in Alexandria, La.
After staying at the shelter for a couple of days, she and her husband, along with two friends, drove to a cousin's house in Memphis, Tenn. They stayed there for six months before moving back to New Orleans and contending with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for financial help.
With funds eventually coming from FEMA, and financial and emotional support provided through her involvement in "Trouble the Water," Roberts said she still lives in the Ninth Ward — but in a better neighborhood on higher ground.
She also has a new outlook on life. Roberts and Scott were in Los Angeles in February to attend the Academy Awards ceremony and receive recognition from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The association with the film has also provided the aspiring rapper, who goes by the name Black Kold Medina, with endless opportunities.
She doesn't even think about selling drugs or street hustling these days because she's busy with her own label, Born Hustler Records, on which she released her first album, "Trouble the Water," in May.
Roberts and her husband are now performing with a live band, and she's been on stage in Paris, New York and a number of other cities throughout the United States. Roberts says she receives a steady stream of invitations to perform and speak at various events in and around New Orleans, and elsewhere. She has even fielded job offers from professional speaking firms.
Then there's the nonprofit organization she founded — Trouble the Waters Awakening Minds — to raise money for substance abuse programs, rehabilitation facilities, and other resources to help people in her community get back on their feet. She is also working on an autobiography.
"Before Katrina I was just surviving everyday," Roberts said. "I just saw the world through the eyes of my neighborhood, and I couldn't see the world past here. I didn't know a whole other world existed out here. I thought this was it. Economic disadvantage dictated our lives."
Hurricane Katrina and her camera work in its wake blew that outlook away.
"I am just glad to experience different things, and the movie has allowed me to do that," she says.
That's a long way from her life before Katrina.
"I felt this was the way it was supposed to be, selling drugs and stuff," she says. "I never had the opportunity to shine."
Then came the storm, and the Oscar.
"Now I'm about making a difference in the world and helping people regain control of their lives," Roberts says, adding that there's still much work to be done in New Orleans.
There have been some improvement for the better in the Ninth Ward, she says, but many of the families who lived in the area for years are no longer there. Many of them can't afford to rebuild nor can they pay the higher rents that accompany rebuilt units.
"A lot of people were uprooted from where they had raised their children for generations," she says. "The few who did come back are now renters where they used to be homeowners."
That's why Roberts still wants to awaken others to the belief that life can get better despite present circumstances. She is still a hustler — only now it's a legitimate hustle with positive results for herself, family and community.
"I do believe the same spirit that dwelled in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Sojourner Truth dwells in me — that spirit to strive for change," she says. "If we continue to change, we won't stay in our condition."
To learn more about Kimberly Rivers Roberts, her music, nonprofit agency, and the film "Trouble the Water," visit bornhustlerrecords.com or troubledwatersawakeningminds.org.
Pat Munson is a writer for the L.A. Watts Times.
Photo courtesy of Alexandra Aversenti; Trouble the Water flyer from www.troublethewaterfilm.com
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