Mardi Gras parade history: How Zulu grew since 1909 (2024)

Learn all about the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club in this segment from Night 3 of our virtual Carnival event, Mardi Gras for All Y'all.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Satire is a key element of Mardi Gras and nowhere is that on keener display than in the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club formed in 1909. Zulu's founders chose their costumes to mock the demeaning portrayals of Blacks in early 20th century culture and the pretensions of the all-white parading organizations of the time.

Each year, members don black makeup, wear grass skirts and hand out coconuts following in the example of their brave founders. Now 112 years later, Zulu is one of New Orleans' most beloved parading organizations.

When does Zulu get together? Well, we got together back in 1909, a group of laborers decided to put a parade on. You know, Mardi Gras was not created for Blacks in the city, we weren't a part of the planning, anything, it just wasn't created for us. In the early years, we were on foot and then around 1915-16 our organization began— they built their own floats.

The history of Zulu is this: a group of laborers decided to see a play and they saw a play about the smart set company and the name of the play was "There Never Was, Never Will Be a King Like Me." In that play, they saw a skit and it was about an African tribe, a Zulu tribe, and that's when they decided to start an organization, a club, and they named it Zulu, that's what it got the name from and that's how the whole thing got started. From there, it turned into what we have today.

What does Mardi Gras mean to me? Mardi Gras, to me, means what many people know it as, it's the biggest free show on earth that largely represents the culture and traditions of the city of New Orleans.

History of Black Mardi Gras— well as a kid, going to the city of New Orleans, I was able to see Mardi Gras in two spectrums, okay? One that was segregated but we weren't allowed to go into thoroughfares of the city, we weren't allowed to go on the Saint Charles Avenues out of Canal Street basically view the parades.

The other side of it is when integration came and then I was able to take part in it. The beautiful thing about Black Mardi Gras— our Mardi Gras was in the neighborhoods, the black neighborhoods. The Mardi Gras Indians, the skeletons, the baby dolls, our Mardi Gras was on Claiborne Avenue under the beautiful oak trees.

The standout moment in Zulu's history is when we're allowed to parade on Canal Street. The community had a— they didn't know what Zulu was, they didn't know anything about us, but it was an opportunity for them to see us and then for us to see them. We had never been on Canal Street, we didn't have our parades through the community as we did then. We were allowed to go on St. Charles Avenue, we're allowed to go on Canal Street and we went through, not only just in the Black community, but we're in a white community as well, as well as the central business district and that was the biggest highlight of our organization.

Most people don't really realize that we have a junior Zulu mentoring program where we go out in our communities and help mentor young boys in our community. In the recent years, we have been sponsoring maids for our debutantes that we call Zulu maids. We provided scholarships last year for all of our Zulu maids to help them further their education. So we also do a strong toys for tots program that started right after Hurricane Katrina where around the holiday times we make sure that we put smiles on the faces of our boys and girls in our community, giving toys and bicycles to those less fortunate in our community, and also we have food basket giveaways.

Our organization has grown in leaps and bounds with respect to making sure we're driving significant synergies in our communities. Louis Armstrong grew up in the area where the Zulu organization was formed. He and one of the presidents of the organization were boys with friends. Louis Armstrong had always seen the Zulus and he always dreamed to be King Zulu one day. Well, after he got to be famous and he moved from the city and his travels, the organization decided to bestow upon him and ask him come back home to be King Zulu. In 1949, that's when they offered him to come back home to reign as King Zulu and he did.

Most of our queens come right from our neighborhood. We had the opportunity to, several years ago, have Rose Lee Roche who was administrator at Southern University in Baton Rouge representing the organization as Queen Zulu. And so we are proud to say that our kings go out and make sure that we find women who are movers and shakers in our community and allow them to represent this organization as Queen Zulu.

On any Mardi Gras day you will find our parade consisting of 31 floats. Thirty one flow captains are responsible what I consider an arduous task of making sure that our floats are filled with coconuts and riders. Our iconic floats are those that many people come out on Mardi Gras day to see. I would like to say the most iconic float is King Zulu followed by The Big Shot, The Witch Doctor, Province Prince, Ambassador, Governor of Zululand and Mr. Big Stuff.

Mainstream was a coconut, the famous Zulu coconut, that's what I consider the most coveted one of all. The other throws, they didn't come [until] later on. The first official throw was the coconut that we had. Today we have over 100, 200 items that our members purchase through our store that they pass along the parade route. It's my big party now, you know, enjoy that day and do the parade, catch coconuts, beads, you know, look at the floats of Zulu and the marching groups and the bands that we have. It's just amazing.

A 114-year-old touchstone of African American culture in New Orleans, Zulu’s costuming, throws and customs are like none other. See them Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023, 8 a.m., Central City to Treme via St. Charles Ave.