Show Me the Money.

These were supposed to be boom times for Socrates Garrett, the African-American owner of tiny Garrett's Construction Co. in Jackson, Miss. His fifteen 18-wheeler trucks, four backhoes, and a front-end loader were familiar sights at local construction projects, including the renovation of the city zoo, so he was sure he'd get work cleaning up after Hurricane Katrina. But after registering his company on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's website and burning up his phone lines calling companies like Ashbritt Inc., the holder of a $568 million contract to remove Mississippi's debris, his hope began to flag. "These guys," he says, "haven't given me a single bite."

Stories like Garrett's are familiar in the troubled federal contracting scene surrounding Katrina. Figures so far indicate that only 1.5 percent of the $1.6 billion of FEMA's Katrina contracts have gone to minority-owned businesses, much less than the 5 percent usually mandated by federal law for big contracting jobs. "We're heavily engaged … in looking at how to increase the numbers," FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews says. The agency held one of the first of many planned back-to-business events at a New Orleans Sheraton Hotel last week, a gathering designed to help small guys learn how to seal the FEMA deal. And FEMA's acting director, R. David Paulison, announced late last week that FEMA's four largest no-bid contracts are being renegotiated.

But that's not going to stave off investigators. Sen. Olympia Snowe, who chairs the Senate's Small Business Committee, asked the Government Accountability Office to scrutinize why the $62.3 billion in federal spending for hurricane response doesn't appear to be reaching minority-owned companies and small businesses based in the Gulf states. None of this is good news for federal officials trying to repair racial tensions after Katrina, which produced images of suffering black urban poor. "The government has a chance to lift minorities up by offering us work," says Garrett, still looking for his shot, "Hopefully, they won't completely blow it."

PHOTO (COLOR): Cleaning up the mess in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina

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By Angie C. Marek