I could think of no more fitting end to my Carnival A-Z than Zulu. This Particular post also happens to be a guest post by Suzanne Richards. She has Titled it From Tramps to Kings, The Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club

With the emphasis on “pleasure”, Zulu reigns over New Orleans as one the most raucous of all the Mardi Gras parades. To come away on parade day with a golden coconut handed to them by a Zulu rider means the lucky recipient has literally won the jackpot of all Mardi Gras throws. Parade marchers dressed outlandish costumes - fright wigs, grass skirts and painted black faces often shock those unaccustomed to the ways of Zulu, especially when most of the participants themselves are black. Characters like Mr. Big Shot, Zulu Governor and the King & Queen of Zulu lend a unique brand of pageantry not found in any other parade.

With the humblest of origins, Zulu began with a group of laborers who organized themselves into a club called, “The Tramps”. Many of The Tramps were members of a benevolent society in their ward, or housing district. These benevolent societies were a vital institution in the black community where, for a small amount of dues, members received financial help when sick or financial aid when burying its deceased members, burial insurance, as it was. Their first official march as Zulus on Mardi Gras Day came in 1909, though the group had been marching since 1901.

While some might contend the black krewe was mocking the extravagance of the white parades, local historians tell otherwise. Zulu members were often poor and resorted to what was cheap and available for costumes. With a king dressed in a lard crown, a hambone for a scepter, grass skirts and painted blackface, their efforts were creative rather than satirical. In 1949, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong reigned as King of Zulu. Before the advent of our litigious society, Armstrong remembered chucking a golden coconut to the crowd. He missed his mark and the coconut bounced off of someone’s brand new Cadillac, leaving behind a dimple in the door.

Being a Zulu wasn’t so pleasurable in the 1960s, as awareness of black identity came to the South. What was seen as an embarrassing anachronism, dressing up and parading in grass skirts and black face played into all the stereotypes being fought against during this period of black pride. Boycotts of their parades were called for as state legislators fought to block desegregation efforts in the public schools. Membership dwindled to less than 20 members and looking to modernize, they abandoned blackface for 2 years. New Orleans is a city of traditions and modern or no, tradition won out with blackfaces reinstated in 1967.

Their parade route took on a new route in 1968, riding the main streets of St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street. Before the new route, one had to travel to the back streets of Black neighborhoods to see Zulu march. Segregation laws contributed to this and, it was also Zulu tradition to march in these neighborhoods. One of the perks of this route included neighborhood bars sponsoring certain floats and, consequently, the floats were obligated to pass those bars. It was considered bad form to not stop in at a sponsoring bar who advertised, "Zulus will stop here!" Once stopped, it was often difficult to get the riders out of these drinking establishments, so the other floats took off in different directions in order to fulfill their obligations.

A rider from this past Zulu parade, Lisa Burns, decorated 200 coconuts in the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras in anticipation of riding on the King’s Family and Friends float. “It was a privilege to ride in Zulu. I’d never ridden in Mardi Gras before and I’m glad that when I did, it was in one of the premiere parades. People who were scattered by Katrina all over (the U.S.) came back to New Orleans to be a part of Zulu.”

Nick Harris, a member for over 21 years and a PR spokesperson, told me the networking opportunities for its members was one of the best aspects of belonging to Zulu. Nick said his proudest moment came when his parents were in attendance as he addressed the crowd of over 15,000 at the Zulu Ball. An organization who has counted mayors, state legislators and councilmen amongst its members, Zulu is, at its core, an everyman’s club. It’s club where any commoner can rise through the ranks to become King.

At 9 o'clock, or thereabouts, the flare of torchlights shattered the darkness of Magazine and Julia Streets, bands burst into symphony, and the Mistick Krewe stood revealed — a company of demons, rich and realistic, moving in a procession that seemed to blaze from some secret chamber of the earth.

They came! Led by the festive Comus, high on his royal seat, and Satan, high on a hill, far blazing as a mount, with pyramids and towers from diamond quarries hewn, and rocks of gold; the palace of great Lucifer. The demon actors in Milton's Paradise Lost. The first torchlit scenic procession in New Orleans, a revolution in street pageantry, a revelation in artistic effects.

Carnival is a butterfly of winter whose last real flight of Mardi Gras forever ends his glory. Another season is the season of another butterfly, and the tattered, scattered, fragments of rainbow wings are in turn the record of his day.

I know that it seems to be a bit of a stretch, but X-Rays are best Carnival themed topic I could come up with for the letter "X". Now, you may be asking "How the heck are X-Rays Carnival themed?" Many people, even life long New Orleanians - myself included until about a year ago, would not understand this connection because they have not witnessed skeletons parading around the streets of the downtown neighborhoods of New Orleans early on the morning of Mardi Gras Day. These Groups are the Skull and Bones groups. They tend to get overshadowed on Mardi Gras morning by Rex and Zulu, the plentiful marching groups, Bourbon Street hijinks, Carnival Day Crime, Mardi Gras Indians, and the Meeting of the Courts.

I honestly, don't know much about them; Everything I do know I learned from a WYES documentary and from this article on the North Side Skull and Bones Gang (scroll to the bottom). If you have the oportunity to leatrn about them, I would say take the time. If you know anything about them that wasn't mentioned in that link, please share it in the comments. If I can get some more info I'll post it here (I'm working on it).

I think Big Chief Tootie Montana summed it all best in saying:

You've got first chief, which is Big Chief; First Queen; you've got Second Chief and Second Queen; Third Chief and Third Queen. First, Second, and Third chiefs are supposed to have a queen with them. That's just tradition. I found them doing that. Your fourth chief is not called fourth chief, he's the Trail Chief. From there on it's just Indians, no title. You also have your Spy Boy, your Flag Boy and your Wild Man. Your Spy Boy is way out front, three blocks in front the chief. The Flag Boy is one block in front so he can see the Spy Boy up ahead and he can wave his flag to let the chief know what is going on. Today, they don't do like they used to. Today you're not going to see any Spy Boy with a pair of binoculars around his neck and a small crown so he can run. Today a Spy Boy looks like a chief and somebody carrying a big old stick. It's been years since I seen a proper flag. Today everybody has a chief stick. The Wild Man wearing the horns in there to keep the crowd open and to keep it clear. He's between the Flag Boy and the Chief.

During the Carnival Season of 1941, something happened that had never before been imagined. Women boarded floats and paraded around New Orleans. Instead of the crowds catching beads from the maskers though, the spectators were the ones doing the throwing; moreover, they were throwing rotten vegetables in protest of women performing what was though of as unladylike, namely riding on a float. Luckily by the late forties, they were widely accepted and one of the more anticipated krewes of the parade season. Alas, Venus did not survive the nineteen nineties, a tumultuous time for Carnival. A new host of krewes pushed this one out of the way.

Although Venus was the first women’s parade, it was not the first women’s krewe. This distinction belongs to the Krewe of Iris, which formed in 1917 and initially only held balls, although it does now parade. With 1300 members, this is the largest of the women’s krewes and it remains quite traditional.

The loss of Venus did not go un-noticed, and the City’s streets have a new female krewe to fill her shoes. This one though is flashier; it is louder; it is more raucous; it is the Krewe of Muses. The Muses have become quite famous in their short history for having some of the best throws and best marching groups. This krewe also has no hesitation in expressing its sense of humor.

The Uptown Parade Route is the current, primary parade route in the City of New Orleans. Infact all parades that parade on the east bank of the Mississippi in the city limits, save one (The Krewe of Endymion), parade on some variation of this route. The basic route begins on Napoleon Avenue at Magazine St. The Parade travels from the start to the corner of Napoleon Avenue and St. Charles Avenue, where it turns right onto St. Charles to head downtown. The parade will go around Lee Circle and continue down St. Charles (against the typical direction fo traffic) to Canal St. The Parade will then turn onto Canal St. where it wil head in one direction before U-turing in the other to approach the evenings terminus.

Thanks to Arthur Hardy Enterprises for the PictureEach Parade has its own slight varitation on the route. Some will on the other side of Napoleon, some will have slightly different routes on Canal depending on the end point of a particular parade, and some even begin at Magazine St. and Jefferson Avenue for an extended parade route. All the parades haven’t always been on this route though – many parades began their lives parading through the neighborhoods in which their membership lived; furthermore, this route hasn’t always existed.

The Uptown route began its life as a group of similar routes used by several parades – the routes were cross town routes. They generally began in either the Garden District or the Lower Garden District, passed trough the CBD, rolled up and down Canal, and entered the quarter before ending (often at the Municipal Auditorium). The existing variation on the uptown route began in the early nineteen seventies when the City of New Orleans decided the confided streets of the French Quarter were no longer appropriate for the growing parades. At this point the parades that had not yet done so moved the beginning of their routes up to Napoleon Avenue.

As you probably noticed, I didn't finish the Carnival A-Z during Carnival Season. I am thus presented with a situation, where I have essentially two options:

a. I can stop where I ended (maybe resume next carnival season, when I have other things I would like to write about).

or

b. I can continue in Lent (when most people don't really care, and it seems sort of inappropriate).

I think I am going to choose option B, just to finish this up so that I can move on to other things. Thus, keep watching and I'll give you U through Z.