Editor's note: Lisa P. Jackson is the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She also served as chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and commissioner of the state's Department of Environmental Protection. Learn more about how the residents of Pontchartrain Park banded together to help rebuild their community on CNN's "New Orleans Rising" at 8 p.m. ET Saturday and Sunday.
(CNN) -- Pontchartrain Park was -- and still is -- the American dream. The historic African-American neighborhood was born in the 1950s, emerging at the height of the Civil Rights era and Jim Crow segregation laws.
Homes were arranged around a golf course planned by Joseph Bartholomew, who had designed several golf courses in the New Orleans, Louisiana, area, but as a black man, was forbidden to play on them.
The homeowners and families in Pontchartrain Park were among the first African-Americans to buy their own homes in the New Orleans suburbs. Despite the racial inequality of the time, they shared a belief that the nation's opportunity should be equal for everyone.
In 2010, Pontchartrain Park is being reborn, re-emerging after the destructive power of Katrina and the failure of the New Orleans levee system left the neighborhood devastated. Today's vision is no less bold than it was in the 1950s.
Pontchartrain Park is re-emerging as model of new urbanism, a place where livability, environmental responsibility and economic opportunity come together. My dad, my aunt and uncle, my cousins and the many other Pontchartrain Park pioneers who are no longer with us would be proud.
That's because the first residents of Pontchartrain Park measured their success not by the sizes of their homes, but, like most Americans, by the range of new possibilities opened for the next generation. I was fortunate enough to be part of that "next generation."
The success of my parents and their neighbors became apparent as the kids I grew up with went on to become lawyers, teachers, doctors, artists and more. Some were the first in their families to go to college. The Park was home to Ernest M. Morial, the first African-American mayor of New Orleans. His son Marc Morial went on to be mayor as well.
Today my generation is working to open up new possibilities for our children. Led by our parents' example, some have even committed to moving back to the Park to restore the community that gave us so much.
Coppied by http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/20/jackson.pontchartrain.park/index.html?hpt=C2#fbid=BRhT0Nxv594&wom=false
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