The work behind New Orleans’ second lines
Shoes collected from another city. A house opened when a door stayed locked. A band listening to a dancer. The neighborhood work that brings a parade into the street.
Archive · 2019Inside this guide
In 2011, the Dumaine Street Gang had a parade to make and a locked door in its way. The Tremé Center had not opened when the members needed to dress. In their published club narrative, Byron Hogans and Rene “Mr. Bang Bang” Reynolds recall the solution: change at Benny Ransom’s mother’s house nearby, call the band to meet them there, then come up the street together. The waiting public took the entrance as part of the plan.
It is a small story with a large cast just beyond the frame: the person who finds a room, the family who makes space, the musicians who adjust. Much of a New Orleans second line is assembled through relationships like those. By the time a visitor encounters the band in the street, a great deal of the occasion has already happened.
Follow a public social aid and pleasure club parade and you enter a living neighborhood tradition. Understanding who puts it on changes what you notice: the work in an outfit, the exchange between a dancer and a musician, the name of a person remembered at a stop. This is a guide to those connections, and to finding the right procession when you are ready to join.
A club lives between its parades
A social aid and pleasure club has an annual occasion, a name and a public presentation. It also has a life during the rest of the week. Hogans describes Dumaine’s standing Tuesday meetings continuing through the pandemic, with members sitting apart outdoors. Reynolds remained involved behind the scenes even during a period when he was no longer parading.
Their account also describes a reciprocal practice of hosting stops for other clubs: food, drinks and sometimes help getting children’s divisions into fresh clothes. Other groups return the hospitality. A place on a route can therefore mark a relationship maintained across different organizations and different Sundays.
The words “social,” “aid” and “pleasure” all carry weight here. A parade lets a club show itself to the city; the continuing association gives the event somewhere to come from. When you read the hosting club’s name on a route sheet, begin there. The occasion has people responsible for it, and a history that extends beyond a visitor’s afternoon.
