The Storied History of Zulu

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) —After the Civil War, African Americans emancipated from slavery, along with free people of color formed thousands of mutual aid groups across the country, mimicking the exclusively white ones, they were not permitted to join. Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, Benevolent Societies and Fraternal Organizations marked a burgeoning new wave of opportunity in communities of color.

While organizations like the Young Men Olympians, the oldest benevolent club in New Orleans (founded in 1884) helped African Americans bury their deceased; in 1909, the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club started taking its first steps.

Norma Dixon Jr. is the president of the Young Men Olympian and believes Zulu’s inception and involvement, forever changed the city for the good, saying, “In the early 1800s, it was restricted to white America, where African Americans started to do a lot of things for themselves and their own communities to support each other. Zulu gave us a Mardi Gras.”

In 1909, a group of men, that called themselves “The Tramps,” walked into the Pythian Theatre to see a play titled, “There Never Was and Never Will Be a King Like Me.” The play that the tramps saw was based loosely off of the Zulu Ethnic group in Africa. Inspired, the group would call themselves the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure club and in time, would begin to serve their community and revolutionize a largely segregated Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Clarence Becknell is the Zulu Historian Emeritus and says, “Zulu came from a benevolent society and just wanted to be a part of Mardi Gras. That’s all and nothing else. They saw a play and adopted the name.”

Over the years, philanthropy combined with the flash and fair of leading the Mardi Gras day parade made Zulu world renown. However, as the world continued to change, some noticed a similarity between the masking of Zulu and the blackface makeup once popularized in the minstrel shows of old.

Elroy James is the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club President and says, “the makeup was really a homage to the founding years of the organization. It’s theatre makeup that we use. In the 60’s and ’70s there was a huge push at the height of the black pride movement against the makeup, so much that the membership dropped to 17.”

Required by city law to mask and with limited resources, eventually, an obscure compromise was struck with the makeup details. In doing so, the tradition of Zulu continues to survive as it’s done for over a hundred years.

In Catholicism, Carnival is the celebration before the Lenten season. In New Orleans, Mardi Gras transcends religious denominations and assumes the spirit of the city. In 2005, that spirit was broken with Hurricane Katrina. However, as it’s been proven, the spirit of New Orleans is a phoenix.

The following year, in 2006, Zulu lead the charge to make a powerful statement to parade.

“The world was watching New Orleans. At the time the argument was that most of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were black. Zulu had to be the one who would say, there needed to be a parade. I think that was a critical moment in Mardi Gras history,” says Errol Laborde, a celebrated Mardi Gras historian.

“We had to have some normalcy back. This thing Katrina took lives. The only way you can get back to life is to live life,” says Becknell.

“I can tell you that as president of the club, I have no question that this organization is going to be around for another hundred years,” says James.

To learn more about Zulu’s incredible legacy, click here.