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Paper short abstract

This presentation highlights the resiliency of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian culture through their use of collective memory, storytelling, and artistic expression to survive the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Paper long abstract

he Mardi Gras (or Black Masking) Indians are an African American parading culture in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. For over a century they have designed and sewn beaded, feathered suits each year that they don to lead the community on improvised parade routes through their neighborhoods on Carnival Day. This cultural practice is deeply rooted in African traditions of art, dance, music, and spirituality, and pays tributes to Native Americans who assisted enslaved Africans’ escape from slavery. Formalized in response to Jim Crow discrimination and exclusion from Mardi Gras Day parades, it has evolved into a celebration of Black art, perseverance, joy, history, and hope, representing the fullness of Black expressive culture.

Drawing on interviews that we, and our students, conducted over 10 years with these culture-bearers, our presentation demonstrates the power of this grassroots tradition – grounded in mutual aid, solidarity, and Black expressive culture – that has helped Black New Orleanians, and the city itself, survive catastrophe. Specifically, we will discuss how the Indians used storytelling, orally and through their suits, to respond to Hurricane Katrina and the Covid-19 pandemic. Both events were catastrophic for New Orleanians, but especially so for Black New Orleanians, for whom legacies of segregation, racial discrimination, and racialized poverty dramatically exacerbated the devastating consequences. Building upon a foundation of artistic and cultural African survivalisms, the Indians used collective memory and artistic expression to survive the ravages of a natural disaster and a pandemic, strengthening their community and city in the process.