krewe zulu's centennial

In 1909, William Story marched as King, wearing a lard.can crown and holding a banana.stalk scepter. The raggedy pants and jubliee songs of the original Tramps changed to black face paint and grass skirts. Inspired by the vaudeville troupe Smart Set's performance about the Zulu tribe, the group of laborers formed the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. Combining several ward.based groups, the emergent benevolent society was incorporated seven years later with social objectives. The Club continued in its role as insurance.provider for the sick and deceased as well as its popular role in Mardi Gras.

Krewe Zulu originally constructed a mule.drawn float from dried.goods' boxes and a spring wagon. In 1916, four Dukes and the King rode through the black neighborhoods, throwing coconuts, toasting at the Gertrude Geddes Willis Funeral Home, and patronizing the sponsoring bars. The coconuts, or golden nuggets, substituted for the expensive glass beads thrown in other parades. The modest float, adorned with palmetto leaves and moss, led the walking members through the segregated city.

The parade and krewe have grown in size and custom since the founding days. Growing from about a dozen members to over 500 strong, the Zulu S.A.P. celebrates its centennial with pride. Reflective of its long history, the organization recalls the integral role it had in breaking down the color and gender barriers of the last 100 years. Louis Armstrong and Desiree Glapion-Rogers (present White House social secretary) reigned as king and queen, repectively, showing the significance of 'black royalty' in adverse times.

It is Shrove Tuesday in New Orleans. Early on this Mardi Gras morning, before the white folks' Rex comes in splendor to Canal Street, the Negroes are having their own carnival. Up squalid New Basin glides a barge, canopied in sacking, to the wharf at Rampart Street and Howard Avenue. Off the barge strides the King of the Zulus, right royal in black underwear, a hula skirt of sea grass, a tin crown. His sceptre is a broomstick, topped by a snow-white rooster. Preceding him is his Queen, behind are his capering dukes. The King mounts his throne—a decrepit easy chair on a mule-drawn wagon. Up darktown's Rampart Street whoop King and courtiers, laughing at the whites on the royal way. At 7 p. m. their parade ends, and the drinking and the loving begin. It is carnival for the merriest of people. It is also dark satire on the pretentious, elite Mardi Gras courts of the white folks' Rex, Momus, Comus, Proteus, the Druids.

[excerpt from Time magazine's 1949 article Louis the First]