"Things You'd Imagine Zulu Tribes to Do": The Zulu Parade in New Orleans Carnival

From the famed Congo Square of New Orleans' colonial past to the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club parades in modern carnival celebrations, evocations of Africa have had a prominent but complicated history within black New Orleans festival culture. Comparatively few African American cultural traditions after the suppression of the dances at Congo Square have referenced Africa directly, until the 1960s-70s public resurgence of "Black Pride." For much of the century between, the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club parade, performing a blackface minstrelsy-inspired parody portraying inner-city New Orleans as "Darkest Africa," was the most visible, but also the most ambivalent and controversial acknowledgement of the city's African heritage. Here, Smith talks about African cultural practices.