Tonight Tipitina’s will host a benefit for the twenty people who were injured in the 7th ward shooting on Mother’s Day. Performers scheduled to appear include Bonerama, The Revivalists, The N.O. Suspects, Donald Harrison and the Congo Square Nation, the Hot 8 Brass Band, and the Stooges Brass Band. I wrote this essay last week.
I have been attending second line parades for over twenty years on a near weekly basis. There are some parades, like the 128-year-old Young Men’s Olympia Jr.’s procession of five divisions with six brass bands on the third Sunday in September, which I never miss. There are other parades like the Original Big 7’s annual Mother’s Day parade that attempted to celebrate a 10th anniversary this year, which I have never attended.
I have witnessed violence and felt the ever-present threat of violence. I have always taken seriously the various similar messages at the bottom of each club’s route sheet—leave your dogs, guns, and attitudes at home.
At one of my first parades in Central City, shots rang out. Hundreds of parade goers reacted like veterans of a foreign war—they all dropped to the ground. I was left standing—a lone naïve white face towering over a multitude of black faces of all ages.
Years later, the Rebirth Brass Band was leading a second line in Gert Town. A rumor circulated like a virus on a cruise ship. Phillip Frazier, the leader of the band, was being targeted. Tensions soared all along the parade route. While the parade was at a stop on a side street off Earhart Boulevard, sharp pops in the distance provoked the crowd. A mass stampede ensued, but by then I knew ducking and covering was better than possibly running right into the gunman. The pops turned out to be fireworks, but the parade had been ruined.
Fortunately I wasn’t at the parade in the 6th ward that ended with a young man emptying two Glock pistols at a rival at point-blank range. He shot the guns at the same time with the triggers horizontal to the ground as if he were some action movie star. Incredibly, because of the lack of basic gun handling skills, twelve shots were fired and the intended target lived.
None of these three episodes were widely publicized, nor were dozens of others that I have witnessed or heard about. Perhaps this is because no one died or perhaps it is because the environment around the second lines has changed. Most likely it is a combination.
Second line parades have been a fixture of urban black life in New Orleans since the turn of the 20th century. Peruse the old photos at the Hogan Jazz Archive or other similar repositories and you will notice that everyone is dressed in their Sunday best. All the men are in suit and tie. They all wear proper hats.
The members of the early social aid and pleasure clubs were upstanding citizens who paid their weekly dues to insure against unforeseen calamities and assure a dignified funeral. Most of these organizations died out as the larger society changed. There are only two clubs left that date that far back.
By the mid 1970s, the SA&PCs and their attendant brass bands were considered by many to be relics of another time. Their memberships were dwindling down to a handful of old timers. When I first became aware of the second lines in the mid 1980s, there were only about eight clubs parading. Now there are parades on nearly every weekend from late August until mid June. There are over 35 organizations putting bands on the street every year.
The growth in the number of second line clubs was spurred by the brass band revival that began with the formation of the Dirty Dozen in 1977. The Rebirth followed in 1983. Yet, the Dozen hasn’t led a parade in decades and the Rebirth now participates in about four parades annually.
Tellingly, the names of some of these newer groups omit the word “aid.” Though many still function as community-based organizations, the emphasis has clearly shifted to pleasure. Another significant change has been the arrival of numerous female organizations. Though women have always participated, female-led groups are a more recent phenomenon.
But perhaps the largest change associated with the social aid and pleasure clubs and their second lines is the large numbers of outsiders who participate. When I first started parading I knew nearly all of the white people who attended regularly. There was Davis Rogan—tall and lanky—who actually paraded a couple of times with Rebirth and the Furious Five division of the YMO. There were photographers Michael P. Smith and Pat Jolly.
More recently, there was “Bin Laden.” So nicknamed after 9/11 because of his distinct resemblance to the Qaeda mastermind. Before he was accepted into the tight-knit community with his daring dancing, he once responded to taunts from surly teenagers on the parade route with the memorable line—“cut me open, I’m filled with feathers.”
Now when I go to a parade I am surrounded by young white hipsters of unknown provenance. The second line parade used to be an invite-only experience. Their existence was unknown to outsiders. You had to go to a second line to find out about a second line. The route sheet for next week’s parade was handed out at the beginning of this week’s parade. Or, you had to pass by one of the likely stops on the route and surreptitiously grab the sheet off end of the bar. Now they are widely distributed across the media.
I had a personal guide when I began second lining and I became a guide as I grew in experience. Over the years I have brought numerous people to the parades. But I always choose carefully which individuals will be comfortable in an inner city setting fraught with all manner of rowdy behavior and the ever-present specter of violence. Some regard the event as the most profound social experience of their lives. Others are never able to shed their fear jackets and resolve to never participate again. Yet, now I sometimes even detect the presence of unaccompanied tourists; cameras dangling from their necks.
The long-term ramifications of the Mother’s Day shoot-up are still unknown. Before the shootings, my musings were more prosaic. I wondered how long would it be until the routes of the parades are published in tourist guides and hyped by concierges? Will the popularity of the HBO show Tremé breed a new brand of cultural tourist?
Now I wonder with so many women and children cut down, will the new female leaders, led by Tamara Jackson of the Social Aid and Pleasure Club Task Force, become a force to reckon with in the larger community? Will the judges, legislators and the police department, and most importantly the school system, finally find a solution to recidivistic gun-wielding teenage criminals? When will “enough is enough” really be enough?
In the eight years since Katrina changed the landscape of urban New Orleans irrevocably, there has been a massive adjustment in attitude by the powers-that-be. If Bill Clinton was our first “black” president, then Mitch Landrieu is our first “black” mayor. Violence at a second line in 2006 led to intense pressure on the clubs as out-of-the-know leaders tried to blame the culture. Now, a concerted effort is being made to insure that the culture is neither accused nor stifled.
The parades will go on defiantly in the face of these hoodlums—these terrorists who seek to sow misery that mirrors their miserable inner lives. But with only four parades (the Big 7 will do a re-do parade on June 1) left on the schedule until August, it will be a long, hot season of reflection.
