NEW ORLEANS


African American Mardi Gras Maskers’ Post-Pandemic Ideas about the Good Life

A collaboration with Kim Vaz-Deville and the Louisiana State Museum

Color, sound, and energy fill the streets of New Orleans each year on Mardi Gras. While this pageantry might seem frivolous to the casual observer, many carnival parades, songs, activities,  costumes, and masking traditions reflect sacred creeds. This is especially true among African Americans, who have long used Mardi Gras as the framework for spiritual expressions drawn from African, Afro-Caribbean, Islamic, Native American, and European belief systems. The quarantines caused by the COVID-19 pandemic did not only interrupt these traditions but also significantly impacted the mourning practices of the Afro-Creole community. The work of OurGoodLife New Orleans was conducted in conjunction with a Louisiana State Museum exhibit titled Mystery in Motion: African American Masking and Spirituality in Mardi Gras. More specifically, this project addresses what "the good life" looked like to maskers as they navigated the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine, specifically the impact on their regalia and associated masking activities.

Religion in New Orleans

For centuries, New Orleans was a predominantly Catholic City. Afro-Creole and African American peoples’ lives revolved around the church. The many industrious students matriculated to the only Historically Black and Catholic University in the nation. They came from devout homes and there was comfort in neighbors and friends sharing a belief system in a physically tough environment. Catholicism has numerous sacred sites and rituals that find their zenith with the coming of Spring: St. Patrick’s Day, St. Joseph’s feast day, and Good Friday which features the sacred prayer of the Station of the Cross in the cemeteries. Yet, enslaved people as they encountered European and Indian systems of beliefs developed their own divine traditions.

Today, these are made most prominently accessible to a broad audience by African American masking practices visible to the community on Mardi Gras, the night of St. Joseph’s feast day, and several community organized Super Sundays which are walking parades that allow the community to view the suits more closely than on Mardi Gras, and at funerals of culture bearers. Most famously is the Catholic food altar tradition of Sicilian Americans who opened their homes for the community partake of blessings. I was over the St. Joseph altar at Xavier for many years and we were able in time to raise $10,000 for a student emergency fund. At Xavier we would add African cloth, African Saints and symbols of the beaded work of students who participated in the campus led by big chiefs and art professors. The Black Masking community would put on their Mardi Gras regalia at nightfall and roam through the neighborhood streets looking for other gangs to battle and meet. The African Americans used this break in lent to celebrate their handicraft and affirm their warrior tradition.

Videos from the Project

Full Panel Discussion >

The Afternoon of Reflection and Meditation with Sacred Visual Art was a curation of artists and community culture bearers here in New Orleans. During the panel, they reflected on what the good life means to them on a personal level, post-pandemic. Dr. Harold Morales welcomed the audience with a wonderful and important introduction of how world and religion studies have often created boundaries around other forms of traditions and cultures that we are a part of. The roots of the Good Life Project are grown through community and joy, finding value in the moments that are celebrated in the midst of the struggles and pain that have been endured. We hear the panelists reflect on their art, photographs, values, success, loss, and what it means to be in relation with the Good Life and how that has shifted in the current times that we are living in. We see this, particularly in connection to the Mardi Gras Black Masking Indians and Regalia, which is an immensely present tradition in the rich culture here in New Orleans. Thank you to Carol, Demond, Sherice, Dartayna, Keshuna, and Michael for sharing their personal experiences of artistry and how important Mardi Gras is to not only themselves but to the community here in the city.

Interview with Cherice, Sula, and Carl

Interview with Carol, Keshuna, and Demond >

During the interview, Carol Harris, Keshuna Jones-Lee, and Demond Melancon reflect on the 2020 and 2021 and the changes they have seen personally and the inward transformations. The deep sorrow for the lives lost is palpable.  They detail how the pandemic shifted their worlds upside down. Harris reminisces as to how Covid is mean and brutal, in all facets of life. This was felt in her immediate family when she watched many of her close ones take their wings. Jones-Lee also shared her personal experience of having Covid-19 and how the closures shut down many of her options of creating income as a singer and performer. As the pandemic put many lives on pause, Demond felt that he was able to hone in on his craft, and continue creating his bead art. This led to opening up his own show and selling some of his fascinating pieces. While reflecting on the Good Life Project, a sense of mindfulness and creation was born in each. As Jones-Lee says so beautifully, she was reminded how much sweeter the simple things are, like being able to see the black maskers come out of their homes with their suits on or see a second line on Sunday’s. These traditions knit the community together.

Interview with Dartanya

< Interview with Dartanya

Dartanya Croff is a fiber artist and a member of Krewe of Goddesses.  She reflects on how the pandemic shifted her focus and identity of herself from aficionado to artist. Learning about the pandemic and grasping the fact that we live in a time where this can exist was a hard reality to accept. But within the last two years, she found solace in understanding that the good life to her is being authentically herself in all of the best ways.

Interview with Horace >

The last suit that Horace “Spy Boy” Anderson created and wore before the Covid-19 epidemic shut down all Black masking activity was called “Cancer Killer.”  That suit addressed the ills plaguing the community.  Black masking traditions are expressions of creativity and make bold statements about problems imposed on the Black community through de-industrialization and gentrification that destroy communities and leave many without viable means for earning a living.    Anderson hails from a masking family and continues the tradition, introducing it to his young sons.  His family members are long-time members of the Nation of Islam.  For Mardi Gras 2022, he and his wife designed a suit that honored Master Fard Muhammad, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader, and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.  The apron on his son’s suit featured a beaded portrait of Mother Clara Muhammad, founder of educational institutions and wife of the Eternal Leader.

Interview with DeJon

< Interview with Cherice, Sula, and Carl

During the interviews of Cherice, Sula, and Carl, you get a better understanding of how the Pandemic affected their lives to what it is today. Between these 3 leaders, you can feel a sense of understanding how deeply intertwined the virus was to spirituality and internal changes. Through Covid-19, Sula has a sense of more creativity and slowing down. She felt the pandemic offered people a chance to relearn how to treat one another. Cherice felt the impacts of Covid hit her family and close ones. She felt the spirit of Olokun, the Orisha of the Bottom of the Ocean. Carl homed in on his safety for his family and protecting those around him. You can feel how Mardi Gras 2020 was a reflection of what the future was going to hold, especially through the creation of Carl’s suit, the Graveyard suit. All 3 felt the pulls of Covid directly in their lives but reflected on the Good Life being a sense of freedom, healing, self-determination, and safety.

Interview with Peteh >

Peteh Muhammad Haroon is the Trail Chief of Golden Feather Hunters Black Masking Indian tribe.  He finds it an honor to watch the back of the Chief Shaka Zulu.  In 2020, he made his first suit an homage to the concept of Sankofa and his faith of the Nation of Islam.  In an interview with poet Kalamu ya Salaam, Haroon said that the “Sankofa bird…a dominant part of the suit…remind(s) you how (of)powerful we were.”  The image of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad on the front of the suit in the middle of 6 Sankofa birds that represent each of his six children is there to remind them of their divine nature.  According to the interview the Islamic flag’s crescent and moon on the back of the suit remind “all of the star or light of justice and the new moon to represent equality.”  The staff consists of “two ankhs and two adinkra symbols that represent our unburnable collective spirit.”  His 2022 suit emerges from the bowels of the earth, his creativity flowing from the dung heap of the scarab and the serene poses of the dead.  The scarabs from the Kemet view represent life itself, endless endings and beginnings.

Interview with Carol, Keshuna, and Demond

Interview with Horace

< Interview with DeJon

Grave Digger DeJon Moore is the “Spy boy” of the Golden Comanche Black Masking Indians.  The Big Chief, Juan Pardo, is a cousin who invited him to mask.  The chief assigned the roles in the tribe and Pardo decided that Moore had the personality to be their ‘grave digger’.  That means that when their group meets another group on Mardi Gras or St. Joseph’s night, the Grave Digger will take his ornately decorated shovel and metaphorically dig the grave of the other tribe if their suits do not rise to the high standards that are expected.  For Mardi Gras 2022, Moore was ready to move beyond the tradition of homage to Native Americans and to celebrate his African ancestry.  With the encouragement of the Chief, Moore conducted his research and found that the West African masquerade of the Egungun (the return of the ancestors in highly decorated swaths of colorful material) was just what he wanted to incorporate.

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Suggested Readings & Resources 

Meet the Team

Kim Vaz-Deville is a professor of education at Xavier University. Her research focuses on expressive arts in response to large group social trauma. Her book The ‘Baby Dolls’: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition from the Louisiana State University Press, 2013 was the basis for a Louisiana State Museum exhibition titled “The Call Me Baby Doll, A Mardi Gras Tradition” and was selected for the 2016 One Book One New Orleans’ adult literacy campaign with eight accompanying community events. Her anthology Walking Raddy: The Baby Dolls of New Orleans published by the University Press of Mississippi, 2018 further explores the tradition. She is the co-curator of the exhibit, "Mystery in Motion: African American Masking and Spirituality in Mardi Gras." It was on display at the Presbytere from February through November 28, 2021. Here is the link to the exhibit’s digital archive. In collaboration with Steve Bourget, curator for the Americas at the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris, France and The Spirit of Fi Yi Yi and the Mandingo Warriors, Big Chief Victor Harris, Vaz-Deville served as Associate Curator for the exhibit entitled “Black Indians of New Orleans” at the Musée du Quai Branly shown from October 2022-January 2023.  Photo by Cheryl Gerber.

Prof. Kim Vaz-Deville

  • Emma Lessley

    Emma Lessley is a queer, nonbinary student and artist from Washington State. Since moving to New Orleans in August 2020, they are pursuing a degree in Gender Studies and currently work as a Paralegal, primarily within social justice work. They worked alongside Dr. Vaz-Deville as a research assistant for the Good Life Project, assisting with the logistics that brought together the event in New Orleans.

  • Troy Pierre II

    Troy Pierre II is a multidisciplinary artist, film photographer and filmmaker from New Orleans, LA. A recent graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans where he received his BFA in Digital Filmmaking, Troy creates from a place of genuine curiosity.

  • Lexcie Thomas

    Lexcie Thomas is a Memphis born and raised graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana, class of 2018. There she received her bachelor’s degree in mass communications w/ a minor in sales and marketing. She utilizes her experience to create productions showcasing different worldviews and outlooks. Lexcie is currently a video director for a nonprofit marketing consulting company and hopes to further expand her impact behind the scenes.

Statement of Gratitude

This project was offered in connection with the exhibition, Mystery in Motion: African American Masking and Spirituality in Mardi Gras, which is on display at the Louisiana State Museum Presbytère from February 13 - November 28, 2021. This program was also funded by a 2021 Rebirth Grant. Funding for 2021 Rebirth grants has been administered by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) and provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the NEH Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) initiative.

This program is indebted to Michael Mastrogiovanni, Cherice Harrison Nelson, Demond Melancon, Carol Harris, KeShuana Jones-Lee, Shaka Zulu, Dartanya Croff, Carl Reed and Janet Sula Evans.  Lexcie Thomas and Troy Pierre shot and edited the video footage. Kayla Siddel created the OMEKA site that serves as the OGLP-New Orleans digital archive. Tia Smith served as the outside evaluator of the project.  Katie Trevino and Sara Lowenburg of the Education Department of the Louisiana State Museum oversaw registration, room reservations, and support during the panel.  Brionna McGhee, Nancy Insidioso, Rylie "Sunny" Jack, and Jeremy Jordan served as research assistants during the panel discussion. Trinette Pichone and the Southern Belle Baby Dolls provided refreshments for the November 20, 2021 Community Event. Megan Holt of One Book One New Orleans assisted with fiscal management. Emma Lessley arranged meetings and interviews and assisted with report writing.  I have a great deal of gratitude for the effort of these committed professionals.

Our Good Life Project was seeded by Harold Morales, Rupa Pillai, and Kayla Wheeler with support from Amrita Bhandari, Ariel Mejia, Sierra Lawson, Fatima Bamba and many others from the Center for Religion and Cities’ collective. 

The work is supported through generous funding from Morgan State University and the Henry Luce Foundation.

The city of New Orleans is located on the land of the Choctaw, Houma, Chitimacha, Biloxi, and other Native peoples, who continue to live in the city. The CRC invites you to join us to learn about the Indigenous history of and contemporary context of Native groups in the lands we live and work on.