 Missile crisis news broke and New Orleans was in the first zone of strikes. If you read your history, you'll see newspaper articles coming out at that time that had circles around American cities that this would be the first zone and this would be the second zone. And New Orleans, because of its location to Cuba, was in the first zone. And so Phil saw many middle class and upper class whites leaving the area quickly, packing their bags. Those left behind were the poor African-Americans.