Lindsey Graham

The woman shakes her head, though, flicking her eyes to the people behind you in line.

Look, there are people waiting.

Pick out what you're taking and move along.

But ma'am, next...

You let out a sigh of defeat and take two shirts, both too big and missing buttons.

And as you and your boy step away, you feel a new sense of loss.

The hurricane took your home, your husband, and all of your belongings.

But it's the smaller cruelties in the days since that have stripped you of your dignity.

In September 1900, a Black reverend lodged a complaint that White ward volunteers were discriminating against Black survivors, giving the best donated goods to White residents in the morning and reserving poor-quality leftovers for Black residents in the afternoon.

Clara Barton stepped in as mediator, working with the respected principal of Galveston's All-Black Central High School to form a Black Red Cross Auxiliary so that Black relief workers could distribute aid to the Black community.

By late September, Barton turned her focus to the problem of housing.

For weeks, homeless families camped out in damaged public buildings, churches, and overcrowded homes, or fled to stay with relatives when surviving structures proved uninhabitable.

Many survivors scavenged materials to construct shacks for themselves or pitched donated tents on their empty lots.

Hundreds more camped in what became known as the White City on the Beach, a miles-long temporary settlement erected with surplus Army canvas tents.

But with fall and winter approaching, Barton worried about how the people living in these tents would survive the colder months ahead.

So she started a letter-writing campaign to urge Red Cross supporters to provide money for building materials and labor.

She also asked the Central Relief Committee to develop a comprehensive rebuilding plan.

A reconstruction committee would then spend roughly $450,000 rebuilding and repairing thousands of homes, mostly modest three-room cottages.

However, the people of Galveston knew that these efforts would go to waste if they could not revive the local economy, so they immediately began working to restore crucial city infrastructure and transportation lines.

The downtown business corridor had reopened early on, with stores offering damaged goods at reduced prices, while Western Union employees quickly restrung telegraph wires, and workers labored around the clock to restore city utilities.