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George Wallace would have been proud.

In 1963, George Wallace stood defiantly in the doorway of the University of Alabama, refusing to let two black students enroll there.

In 2005, during the days of chaos that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, a chain of police officers stood at the entrance to the Crescent City Connection bridge on the New Orleans side of the Mississippi River. The armed officers were from suburban Gretna, Louisiana, on the other side of the river, and from two other suburban forces.

The police turned away anyone who tried to pass on foot across the bridge into Gretna, even though New Orleans police and the media were directing the frightened and hungry and homeless citizens of New Orleans to use the bridge as an escape route.

Two California paramedics, Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, who were in New Orleans for a conference, tell a harrowing story of their search for refuge in the surreal days after the hurricane. Their ordeal includes this encounter with the Gretna police:

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions...

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge...They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans...

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile, only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.

Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson claims he closed the bridge to foot traffic in order to protect his city from a flood of refugees:

Gretna is a predominantly white suburban town of around 18,000 inhabitants. In the aftermath of Katrina, three quarters of the inhabitants still had electricity and running water. But, Chief Lawson told UPI news agency: "There was no food, water or shelter in Gretna City. We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people. If we had opened the bridge our city would have looked like New Orleans does now - looted, burned and pillaged."

In all likelihood, the suburban police acted out of a sense of self-preservation, not racism. But if that sense is an irrational one, it is a distinction without much of a difference. Both motivations reside in a dark and chilling side of human nature — one which George Wallace knew and understood intimately.