The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University

6823 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70118
(504) 865-5535
FAX (504) 865-5580

Founded in 1966 as the first repository to chronicle the Civil Rights Movement, the Amistad is one of the nation's premier minority archives. It has over ten million documents, plus a library of some 20,000 volumes and significant art holdings. The Center is an independent institution, located off the St. Charles streetcar line on the tree-shaded campus of Tulane University.

The Amistad uses manuscript collections, oral history projects, and traveling exhibits to document the Other Mardi Gras. African-Americans and other minorities were often limited to spectators or laborers for the white celebrants, but quickly made their own Mardi Gras traditions. Minority efforts could be seen from colonial times forward. Flambeaux carriers, for example, developed unique dancing forms with strong African influences. Others evolved the "Second Line"--the New Orleans' creation of a parade after the parade. Mardi Gras Indians emerged in the 1880s as "outlaw" second liners, but are now revered for their colorful costumes. Members of the African-American community even initiated their own "formal" organizations, some of which imitated the stylized "krewes" of the white community. In the 1890s, The Original Illinois Club began presenting debutantes and putting on tableaux or theatrical productions at their bails. Other clubs were formed as direct parodies of the white krewes--Zulu. the world renowned African-American Mardi Gras krewe with its embellished coconut throws, began parading in 1909. The Other Mardi Gras included still other specialized groups, like the Baby Dolls, and unique neighborhood celebrations that are still little known to the world outside the Big Easy.

Amistad carnival-related items include:

-- programs and clippings from the B-Sharp Music Club Collection, (ca. 1925-1992; .8 lf., a leading African-American musical organization in New Orleans.

-- 16mm. films of Zulu coronation balls, 1955, 1956, 1971, 1972, n.d., from Lillie Mae Green Papers (1955-1972, 2 If).

-- sheet and manuscript music, tape recordings from Louisiana Music Collection, with notable compositions such as Les Folies du Carnival by Basil J. Bares, a former slave whose music and orchestra were much in demand by New Orleans Carnival groups during Reconstruction.

-- audio, video, and transcribed interviews of New Orleans musicians by historian Tom Dent, from New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Collection (1982-84; .8 lf).

-- correspondence, financial records, and publication of the elite organization Autocrat Social and Pleasure Club (1927-1930), from Alexander Pierre Tureaud Papers.

-- prints, slides, audiotape of Mardi Gras Indians, from Amistad's Mardi Gras Collection (ca 1930-1992; .4 lf) and from the Christopher West Collection (ca 1980; 2 lf).

-- newsclippings from La Louisiane (1841), The Union (1862), and The Daily Crusader (1894-95), and records of Les Jeunes Amis, a mutual benefit society founded 1867, in the Charles Barthelemy Rousseve Papers (1841-1984; 2.4 lf).

-- Mardi Gras Indian Exhibit (1993), prepared for the 1993 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The Center is also working with the Mardi Gras Indian Coalition in the establishment of a Mardi Gras Indian Museum.

-- St. Mark's Community Center Oral History Project.

-- Amistad's Treme Oral History Project, funded by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, will interview individuals involved in many different aspects of the musical and social life of the residents of that neighborhood.