End of Black Debutante Tradition in NOLA

New York Times
March 2, 2006
No Cinderella Story, No Ball, No Black Debutante
By SUSAN SAULNY

Amanda Williams, 18, was to have worn this gown to the Original Illinois Club cotillion in New Orleans.


NEW ORLEANS, March 1 — Just before midnight on Tuesday, the young women of this city's most prominent white families waltzed and waved in flowing gowns and tiaras at the formal galas held by the oldest and most glittering krewes of the Carnival season, Comus and Rex.

Usually, there are parallel Mardi Gras balls held by the city's large, historically black Carnival organizations.

Amanda Williams and Amirah Jackson, in fact, were supposed to be among the young women whose accomplishments and dreams for the future were announced to society at largely black cotillions here this year.

But unlike the mostly white families of Comus and Rex who were able to continue their traditions in the face of Hurricane Katrina's destruction, Ms. Williams and Ms. Jackson could only daydream about what might have been in the ball gowns they never got to wear.

They were to have been presented by the oldest black Carnival society in New Orleans, the Original Illinois Club, which has been holding a tableau ball on the Saturday night before Mardi Gras since 1895. But for the first time in two generations, there was no Original Illinois Club ball, or any other debutante soiree given by the large historically black Carnival organizations. They simply are not here anymore.

Ms. Jackson and Ms. Williams, both 18, watched the Carnival season unfold without them from Frisco, Tex., a town just north of Dallas, where they had to explain to their white friends that, yes, young black women make their debuts, too.

"It was a family tradition for me; my mom did it and my grandmother did it," said Ms. Jackson, whose home was badly damaged in the hurricane. "I was going to be the first one to do it in my generation. We were all with the Original Illinois Club. My mom has been talking about it to me since I was little. Really, I just wanted to see her smile about it."

Like so many other aspects of New Orleans, Mardi Gras has long been rigidly polarized along racial lines, with its black and white adherents celebrating equally enthusiastically but almost totally separately in krewes, which are private, nonprofit clubs.

Rather than open its membership to blacks, for instance, Comus simply stopped parading in 1991 when a city ordinance banned discrimination within organizations that hold Mardi Gras parades, which rely on public money for crowd control and sanitation, among other things.

Like other krewes that stopped parading, Comus, made up almost exclusively of white men, continued to hold balls. Other krewes, like Rex, opened their membership and have held integrated parades, but the debutantes at their balls are almost exclusively white.

In the 19th century, middle-class blacks felt so excluded from the Carnival spirit that they formed their own organizations, and several of those, like the Original Illinois Club, thrived until the storm. They not only held parties, members say, but did good works throughout their communities and gave upwardly mobile blacks a needed citywide network of professional contacts.

Now their notable absences highlight the changed demographics of this shrunken city: it is largely devoid of its black middle and upper classes, while poorer blacks have begun to return to largely undamaged neighborhoods in the inner city in significant numbers. Whether the black educators, lawyers, business executives and health care workers who mostly lived in the ravaged areas of Gentilly and New Orleans East will return remains unclear.

But for those whose lives revolved around it, the Carnival season this year was a lesser celebration as a result of the loss of a unique ethnic tradition.

"It represents a very elegant part of black society that many people don't get to see — it's something you have to be privileged to see," said Phoebe Ferguson, a documentary filmmaker who lives in Brooklyn and is completing a project that focuses on black society called "Member of the Club: A New Orleans Cinderella Story."

Unlike the white clubs that have traditionally emphasized family names and lineage, the black clubs focused on accomplishment above all else, local historians say, putting emphasis on a young woman's education and suitability for higher learning and the work force.

In a city where family roots run deep, and where formality, tradition and Carnival season theatrics are among the most enduring traits, it is hard to overstate the lingering social importance of the debutante ritual. It is a coming-of-age event as integral to a certain segment of society here as Sweet Sixteen parties or bat mitzvahs are in other places.

The local newspaper, The Times-Picayune, provides extensive coverage of the balls, and publishes a special section every year profiling the debutantes who are to be introduced throughout the season.

Ms. Williams's profile, which was published in July, before Hurricane Katrina, stated that she hoped to "attend medical school to prepare for a career as an obstetrician/gynecologist." Ms. Jackson's profile had the headline, "Athlete Also an Author."

Ms. Williams, a senior in high school, had already bought seven formal gowns for events in the weeks leading up to the actual debutante ball. She had to be dressed appropriately for black-tie parties given by the court's queen and several of her maids, in addition to teas and brunches and weekends of afternoon dance practices. The rules were strict: nothing skimpy, nothing fitted, nothing black.

"There's nothing that compares to it," Ms. Williams said. "It's the way to say, 'I'm a woman now.' Everyone gets to hear your life story, your accomplishments, what you plan for the future. None of that happens at a prom; there's no comparison. You're just hanging out with your friends. At the ball, you meet other girls and form a bond. It's a social thing that also connects you to everybody who's ever come out with the club."

Many of the black clubs are hoping to hold traditional debutante balls next year and plan to invite the young women who missed their turn. But the future is uncertain.

"A lot of the organizations are struggling financially because of the storm," said Gerard Johnson, a member of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, of which he was king in 2004.

Zulu, the largest black Carnival krewe, paraded this Mardi Gras but did not hold a debutante ball.

Zulu's annual ball usually draws 16,000 people to the New Orleans convention center. In lieu of the ball, Zulu held a smaller party for its members last Friday night.

Earl Jackson, a former king of the Original Illinois Club and its financial secretary, said only one of 50 members lived in New Orleans now.

"It was probably one of the saddest moments we've ever had, canceling the ball," he said, vowing that it will be back next year. "We will not let it die."

Members say the club took the name Illinois because so many of its founding members were Pullman porters on the Illinois Central Railroad — a position of some prestige among blacks in the 1890's. Over the decades, members gradually moved into the professional class, but they still cherish their roots.

"A lot of other people I know, African-Americans who aren't from New Orleans, they laugh at us," Ms. Williams said. "They say, 'You're a debutante? I thought only white people did that.' I say: 'Not where I'm from. We make our debut, and it's a big deal.' "

Although most of the Williams family possessions were lost in the flood, the ball gowns, protected in plastic garment bags, were among the only things to survive.