This news story may have been drowned out by the lead-up to Super Tuesday, but the voices and music of New Orleans's historic Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs were not. Several of the clubs were allowed to hold their annual "second line" parade (so named after the second line of people that would follow the band in traditional jazz funerals) on Monday, February 4 despite an earlier threat by the NOLA P.D. to close down the parade.
Photo: Tim Carnahan
The social clubs, which began forming after the civil war with the goal of providing loans, education, and aid to freed slaves, have long paraded as a way of transcending turf wars and celebrating a common heritage.
Despite a century-long parade tradition, not to mention the fact that the social clubs went through all the red tape of getting a permit, paying a fee, and working with the police department to choose a date and a parade route, the department had apparently become intent on shutting down the event because, it claimed, it lacked enough officers to patrol that day.
Citing free speech and equal protection rights guaranteed by the Constitution, the ACLU of Louisiana stepped in and filed a motion in federal court asking the court to stop the police from canceling the parade.
According to parade organizers and the ACLU's filing, the police had begun applying "improper pressure" in an attempt to have the parade cancelled. Specifically, an officer began calling members of the social clubs suggesting that if the parade wasn't cancelled it would jeopardize future parades. Some of the clubs were so intimidated that they dropped out. Then, three officers in uniform delivered a letter to the president of the Social Aid and Pleasure Club Task Force ordering that the parade be cancelled.
According to the ACLU's motion, the free speech of the social clubs was "threatened due to the unreasonable revocation of a parade permit" that had already been granted.
On Friday, the social clubs got the good news that their right to parade was protected. And on Monday, also known as Lundi Gras, hundreds of members of New Orleans's Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs stepped out in style.
