New Orleans Marching and Parading Organizations

For several decades, an associate of Thompson published a "Blue Book" guide to the prostitues and brothels of Storyville. The Book described individual establishments, madams, and popular prostitutes with photographs and contact information for many. Certain of the brothels were "octaroon houses", such as Mahogany Hall and the Blue Book included that information as well. Since Storyville was located just adjacent to the main passenger rail station in New Orleans, on Basin Street, passengers could purchase the Blue Book upon arrival for twenty five cents.

By 1900, Storyville was a main source of revenue for the city, but in the lead up to the American entry into the First World War, military authorities became concerned about the troops embarking from New Orleans risk of contagious diseases contracted in Storyville. Finally, in November 1917, the "District" was formally eliminated and both white and black houses of prostitution opened up in multiple other areas of the city.

Storyville catered almost exclusively to white customers, although the working girls were white, mixed race, and black. To serve the market of non-white customers, a "Black Storyville" grew up on the other side of Canal Street. Despite several attempts to define an enforcement free district in Black Storyville, this never happened, and the area and people working in it were subject to police enforcement and harrassment.

All of which brings us to the "Baby Dolls" origin story. Around the time of Mardi Gras in 1912, some of the black women working in Black Storyville decided to organize a parade for themselves. The prostitutes of Storyville were free to parade along the main streets, including Canal Street, but the prostitutes of Black Storeyville had not been able to participate. The story goes that the women of Black Storyville and some male friends decided to parade anyway, and the women chose to dress in "baby doll" fashions, complete with baby accoutrements, such as pacifiers and bottles, as well as the short skirts, bloomers, garters and laced bodices of the dresses. They paraded smoking cigars and throwing money to the crowd. Some also accepted money stuffed into their garters or bodices, and some may have exchanged sexual favors for money enroute. Certainly many women reportedly returned with more money than they had started with.

The women who were the first Baby Dolls were women of means who earned a good living working in a difficult trade under difficult situations. At that time, there were not many options for a single woman, especially if she had a child or children, to earn a decent living and be self sufficient. To some extent, the Baby Dolls also celebrated the economic freedom and power of the women involved.

With the end of Storyville and the dispersion of the people who worked and entertained there, the Baby Doll tradition waned, although it continued in black neighborhoods into the 20s and likely until the great depression. The association of the parades with prostitution and sometime risque behavior of the participants contributed to the waning of the tradition. The tradition was revived, however, through the efforts of prosperous black women in the 1950s and 60s, led by Antoinette K-Doe, wife of Ernie K-Doe, Geannie Thomas, and Tee-Eva Perry. They formed the "Ernie K-Doe Baby Dolls" and emphasized that the participants were professional women working in legitimate professions and occupations.

Merline Kimble and Lois Nelson started the Gold Diggers. Other groups include the Treme Million Dollar Baby Dolls (Reza "Cinnamon Black"Bazile) and the Baby Doll Ladies (of the New Orleans Society of Dance). Baby Dolls in 1912.
Gold Diggers Baby Dolls Baby Doll Ladies Black Storyville Baby Dolls K-Doe Baby Dolls Tee-Eva” Perry The Baby Dolls: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition” by Dr. Kim Vaz-Deville

Skull and Bones Gangs

Northside Skull and Bones Gang

This is the only Gang currently active that I know of, but there could be many I am not aware of. This group appears to be based in Treme and the adjacent Seventh Ward, and is led by Bruce "Sunpie" Barnes, a prominent local musician and cultural historian. Barnes is originally from Benton, Arkansas, and had careers in professional football and as a National Park Service Ranger. He is know best for playing blues harmonica and zydego accordian and has been involved in studies of Black Creole music of South Louisiana and its relation to the musical traditions of Haiti and the Caribbean.

The Skull and Bones Gang rises in the pre-dawn hours of Mardi Gras Day and ranges through the neighborhood knocking on doors and windows to wake up the community for the coming celebration. They are also reported to seek out and lecture recalcitrant children on the need to work hard in school and obey their elders. In Treme, after the day begins, the Northside Gang can be found around the Backstreet Cultural Museum. The Gang also parades with Indians on Downtown Super Sunday.

Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs

Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs (SAPCs) in New Orleans are a distinctive culture that reaches back to the earliest days of Africans in America. The clubs were created for fellowship and as a financial support system to properly bury deceased African slaves and free people of color and to lend support in other ways. SAPCs represent a strong symbol of connection to traditions of Africa and the Caribbean. New Orleans may be the only place in America where organized rituals created and derived by African-Americans have connections to African cultureal traditions.

SAPCs and their annual parades are indigenous to New Orleans. The nature of the celebratory second lines – both somber and joyous – are related closely to some of the funeral traditions in the African American community and may reflect cultural and religious traditions in Africa. In particular, the hip and posterior swinging dance styles derive from west Africa. Today, most any street parade, spontaneous or planned and scheduled, private or public, is called a "Second Line", but it may be better to recognize that there are funeral processions, with participants making up the "second line" on one hand, and there are street parades, which may be planned or arise in response to some event, which lack many aspects of the more traditional funeral procession.

There are forty-five or so Social, Aid & Pleasure Clubs in New Orleans. Each club has its own mission and direction, and many are gender-specific, but a number of clubs have ‘divisions,’ which include men, women and children. Every SAPC organizes and hosts a public parade, usually on a Sunday, in a specific area of the city where the club was founded or is headquartered or where most of the members live. The parades are also known popularly as "second lines". Although this term may be more generic than specific, it probably arose in referenct to the crowds of people who follow the along with and behind the parading SAPC and dance in a free-style form derived from African dance traditions.