(2008) You've heard of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but what of the home of the original carnival of Shrove (Fat) Tuesday in Mobile, Alabama? Director Margaret Brown, herself a former queen, presents a documentary of the city's 2007 Mardi Gras, a proud tradition reaching back to its first celebration in North America in 1703.

"Blacks and whites get along fine," says a white man from behind his mask. An African-American, Samuel L. Jones, is mayor of Mobile. Ms Brown's grandfather, Dwain Luce, defends the practice of having exclusive societies and separate parades, just as he should always retain the right to have say over whom he'll invite into his home.

Caucasians select (based on family pedigree) their own nobility within the Mobile Carnival Association (MCA) - Queen Helen Meaher, Emperor Felix III (Max Bruckmann), and their court; African-Americans similarly elect a king (Joseph Roberson) and queen (Stefannie Lucas) to represent the Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association (MAMGA), originally founded in 1938 as the Colored Carnival.

Leading up to the main festival are various balls (e.g., the Camellia with its debutantes), parties, and preparations of the floats and garish costumes. (Special train designers create elaborate caudals, requiring the royal wearer to be harnessed to the gaudy appendage.) Numerous organizations, some with exclusive membership and others such as the Mobile Mystics and Conde Explorers open to anyone - are involved in putting together the masked entertainments and social activities.

A city of sacred trees, where people treasure their roots and heritage, Miss Meaher's family, the city's principal property owners, are descendants of the Meaher who brought the last (illegal) shipload of African slaves to these shores in 1859 to win a bet. When the ship, the Clothilde, was grounded and set ablaze on his order (to destroy evidence of his crime), the cargo of passengers fortunately escaped, becoming the residents of African Town.

Their descendants annually celebrate the historic occasion along with the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the international slave trade. Queen Stefannie's African ancestor came ashore from the Clothilde. A black speaker decries the "holocaust" and "domestic terrorism" of the past, demanding not monetary reparations to be paid but "another kind of currency - a change of heart." In 1981, 19-year-old Michael Donald was lynched by members of the KKK, one of the last reported atrocities of this sordid sort in the US.

Mardi Gras, says a black woman, is "the last stronghold of segregation" in Mobile. Paeans to moon pies, casting of bead strings, and coronations: for the first time during its 134 years, the MCA invites the MAMGA's royal couple to its crowning of Queen Helen and Emperor Felix III. (Perhaps some day more than this token invitation and reciprocation will follow.) The royals of both the MCA and MAMGA mingle at the integrated Comrades Ball preceding Mardi Gras Day with the MCA's parade taking place first followed by the MAMGA's floats, marching bands, and dancers.

In the final parade, the oldest - the Order of Myths (OOM) - since 1868, a float passes with a broken column (symbol of the failed Confederacy?) around which a pair of costumed performers, representing folly and death, chase and strike each other.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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