#blackhistory #carnival
Fat Tuesday is the last day of the New Orleans carnival season. It falls on the day before Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent). The festivities bring together Catholic and Pagan traditions and, as Carnival, it is celebrated in countries as diverse as Brazil, Trinidad, and England.
Jade Flint writes that “[w]ithout the incorporation of African-influenced music and dance, Carnaval would not have become the energetic, pulsating festival that we know today. Another important aspect of Carnaval is the act of freeing oneself of the inhibitions of everyday lives. Traditionally, class and racial divisions were somewhat invisible and allowed people to pretend to be something else in a fantasy world of their own creation. Today, Brazilians are using the time to express their discontent with the growing disparities with the rich and the poor, Black and White, and straight and LGBTQ+ communities for example. Protests against the national President Jair Bolsonaro and the gun violence that plagues Brazil were also common sights. Furthermore, the fantasy world of Carnaval shows us the potentiality of better in our real lives.
WATCH PROFESSOR TSHOMBE MILES ON THE AFRICAN ROOTS OF CARNIVAL
Similar to Carnaval, New Orleans’ Mardi Gras is a fantastical celebration of epic proportions that allows participants to leave their quotidian lives in favor of pretending to be anyone they can imagine. The tradition and name come from the French “Boeuf Gras” meaning “fattened calf.” Traditionally, the Catholic Creole families of New Orleans held irregular but amazing balls and parades during the 18th century.
However, the tradition took on its modern-day form through Anglo-American immigrants who were influenced by the secret societies in Mobile, Alabama who paraded as early as 1704. Thus technically Mardi Gras commenced in Mobile, Alabama. However, the city of New Orleans turned the festivity into the world-renowned phenomenon that it is today. Given the prevalent racism and segregation in the Jim Crow South, many of the krewes, the commonly used word for traditional Mardi Gras organizations, such as Rex, Comus, Bacchus and Endymion do not allow Black people in their organizations as well as resembling the Ku Klux Klan in their costuming, suggesting strong affiliations to anti-Blackness.”