The Zulu parade emerged around the turn of the twentieth century and grew out of New Orleans’s African American community. Members of benevolent organizations, groups that engaged in community organizing, decided that if Mardi Gras was going to be segregated, they would begin a Krewe (a Mardi Gras club) of their own. They crowned a king, who wore a lard can atop his head and held a banana stalk as a scepter, mocking the class privilege of most white Carnival Krewes. It got launched in 1909 by black working-class men -- dock workers, wagon drivers, bartenders, hustlers, pimps . Zulu was considered an alternative to the «whites only» activities of Carnival. It began as a spoof, but gained popularity with working class and some of middle class as time passed. It was a subtle form of protest against the powers that be without crossing the line of «expected and accepted» racial behavior. There are all kinds of ways to interpret the meaning of Zulu and the notion of an African American man wearing blackface, which was typically the hallmark of the minstrel show. The most obvious of these readings is to view the use of blackface as an attempt to seize upon racist symbols and invert them as demonstrations of African American power. That African Americans choose to wear blackface demystifies racist cultural symbols and norms, robbing those symbols of some of their sting. By embracing and amplifying white stereotypes of black character, Zulu was a safe way to mock the mockers. Its clownish royalty punctured the pretensions of the ermine-bedecked white elite. The strategy made the black bourgeoise uncomfortable, however. The Civil Rights era was complicated for Zulu. What had been an important and subtle outlet for African Americans in New Orleans, open to many interpretations, suddenly was a contested ritual. Some African American observers were not happy with the use of blackface, which suggested that participants in Zulu were happily playing the fool for white New Orl

Nicola Lo Calzo

Cham 

Culture is a complex thing, especially when it is emergent from centuries of violence, oppression and bondage. The Atlantic slave trade moved millions of bodies and reordered the geographies of peoples and their customs. There are as many histories as there were individuals who lived and suffered, were bought and sold. I have waded deep into this history for my ongoing Cham project.

For five years, I have been investigating slavery’s legacy in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and Americas. From the destruction and the uprooting imposed by the Europeans, to the conquered and deported peoples, the history of slavery is inseparable from the odyssey of Western colonialism but it it is also the history of resistance to slavery. Elements of resistance are visible in the many visual cultures and traditions.

There no longer exists clear icons or customs that are squarely of a singular experience or heritage. Over the centuries, and at different moments, descendants of slaves across the Atlantic region have won freedom, moved and settled, mixed, revived ancient traditions, and reclaimed symbols of the slavery era. Everything, visual culture included, is in constant flux. I’m interested in exploring through photography how and why these groups re-appropriate their slavery past, the ways and manners by which they are transferring this memory to the next generation, as well as its impact on modern societies.

The project Cham is made up of multiple chapters: after West Africa (TCHAMBA), French Antillas (Mas), Haiti (AYITI), Suriname & French Guyana (OBIA), Southern United States (CASTA) and Cuba (REGLA). I wish to continue the CHAM project in Colombia, notably in the coast region, where the afro-descendant community is based from the colonial time. Here I present the series CASTA, produced within a six-month research period, about the race, memory and community in the southern parts of the United States.

This essay was Shortlisted for the EPF 2016

 

The Natchez Pilgrimage Tour was founded by a group of white women, in 1930, to compensate for the loss of resources that came with the collapse of the cotton industry and the 1929 financial crisis. Twice a year, the tour displays what is known as the «Historic Natchez Tableau», a replay of the history of Natchez, capital of the «Cotton Kingdom» until 1863. The scenes depict a presumed history of Natchez from its foundation until the present day, focusing on the splendour of landed gentry, aristocracy and the wealth of the city, without any mention of slavery on which such wealth depended. According to Cheryl Rinehart, artistic director of the «Tableau», the objective is primarily didactic: «teach young people the glorious history of the city.» From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
Descendants of old masters, dressed in costumes reminiscent of the Antebellum era, welcome tourists. In their presentations or speeches, «slaves» become «servants». The tour guides would rather talk about the daily lives of the master or interior decoration and family trees rather than confront a past of slavery. Presentations or speeches by descendants are nostalgic, and the verbosity about their fondness for the arts and architecture masks the flaws of a past imbibed in slavery. Visitors get a selective view of history. From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
Despite their bourgeois or aristocratic ancestry, white families in Natchez lost the wealth and social prestige that distinguished them until the fifties. Nowadays they belong to the poorer classes and the urban proletariat, Mississippi being the poorest state in the United States. From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
Established in 1917 during the Jim Crow Laws, the Bunch Club is one of New Orleans oldest clubs. The most of his members are descendants of the Free People of color, or Creole of color, a powerful middle-class over the Antebellum period. While primarily a fraternal organization, it is best known for the Bunch Club Carnival Dance. On the Friday before Mardi Gras, the members of the Bunch Club and their 1500 guests celebrate the carnival season. At the stroke of midnight, they escort their wives or special guests in a Grand March. Clad in tuxedos, crimson capes, plumed hats, white gloves, and club medallions, the Bunch Club’s members reenact a Mardi Gras tradition that has lasted nearly a century. This year’s dance was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The club members represent educators, university presidents, bankers, government workers, notable attorneys, doctors, writers and entrepreneurs whose professions keep them involved in the well-being of the city. The Bunch Ball is today the most important social event of this community. The Bunch Club was among the first clubs to boycott Mardi Gras during the integration crisis of the 1960s. We will continue to enhance our ability to serve the needs of our outstanding membership, Dr. Helm says. The Bunch Club continues to attract men of good standing in the community, many of whom continue to be leaders in their chosen careers. From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
Through daily rehearsals of the marching bands, their participations in New Orléans carnival parades, and their recent media coverage on American television , musical learning is an important identity issue for young Afro-Americans. Learning music appears in this context as indicative of a double identity : as a vector of social advancement for students and teachers , it paradoxically lets them to assert their membership in a world of street , as opposed to standards social respectability of the middle classes . Members of marching bands New Orléans consider themselves as the guardians of African-American tradition that they are trying to keep alive . They claim their identity, built not in opposition to the dominant culture, but acceding and integrating it in the construction of their educational practices. It is not a counterculture, but rather a form of conformism : a hierarchical, disciplined and ordered group, whose the value system and the operation is modeled on the white American middle class. Instrumental learning and staging are the result of rigorous training , a strict supervision and disciplined practice. Florence Pelosato Anthropologist From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
I Was born November 15,1993. My stage name is Big David; I’ am American rapper from New Orleans, Louisiana. Throughout my early childhood, I was a witness to the many lives that were lost and victimized by the streets. My life changed July 20.2002 after witnessing the death of my mother. I began rapping as a way to cope with the passing of my mother. By the time I was 16 I had began to work on my first mixtape as well as recording and mixing my own music. On September 24, 2010 officers acting in the undercover capacity attempted to detain me in an unlawful fashion after I struck a plain-clothes officer. I was brutally kicked and beat by as many as 3 or 4 officers. After being struck in the head with a gun, which lacerated the top of my head I was handcuffed and stomped in the head while in handcuffs. Doctors concluded that I suffered a concussion as a result of the brutal assault. After many court dates and trials I was adjudicated for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer despite the fact that I was the one who was assaulted due to the cops suspicion of me distributing narcotics. Narcotics were never found. I received 6 months of probation. I want to disseminate the injustices of my community. I have faced many impediments and have come to discern that in this day and age an oppression of our people is very much prevalent. We have been oppressed for so long that bigotry has become deeply ingrained into our minds and we remain ignorant to knowledge. Throughout my life I have remained strong allowing me to endure without despondence. Many of us cannot acknowledge the obstructions that are the foundation of an oppression but as I have said in my song Nas 1 Mic Remix, «I swear to God dope money got brothaz riding round in a member see we at war and the hood is hiroshima see they got bombs that they dropping on un but these brothaz dont’ see it yea they plotting on us cant’ put us in chains so they put us in cuffs in these underdeveloped neighborhoods brota
The «Black Indian» battles during carnivals show another vision of the past. These groups, organised into about 40 tribes or «gangs» in New Orleans’ urban areas, play a fundamental role in the historical reconstruction of native American and black resistance through the development of the “Suits” tradition . Despite having no public support, they have been working from the 19th century to revive the symbols of the Native Americans and Black resistance, in order to re-appropriate the past. These groups also chose to present a select view of black society, emphasising its connection with Indian civilisation while erasing any links to the White community, which stands to stain any idea of original purity. Thus, the Louisiana carnival has become a high place of dramatisation of identity and heritage, offering a local reconstruction of history and heroes. The carnival is a central point of convergence for Louisiana’s cultural identities. “Suits”, acclaimed as authentic contemporary art pieces, are traditional elements of the carnival. They are symbols of disorder, and are linked to rural areas. They are primal and belong to the earth and swamps. It is a world that belongs to native Americans and maroon slaves. A world at the margins of society. An outlawed world. Whenever the «Suits» or Black Indians emerge from the countryside to invade the frightened city, there appears on the scene a deluge of popular representations that systematically associate them with savages, uncivilised native warriors, maroon slaves, whose rebellious and defiant reputations need to be kept intact. By invading the urban space, Suits who moved massively to the city centre undoubtedly cunningly schemed with the American morality to survive. This symbolic movement carries a huge emotional charge, as Suits convey the wounds of a history that is as violent as its denial. From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
The gentrification of one time black neighbourhoods has contributed to the de-territorialisation of the poorer classes, while weakening their social and geographical identities. Conversely, despite the changing population profile, some neighbourhoods have kept their symbolic value alive as they continue to embrace actions and events linked to their historical communities. This is the case of Tremé, the historic headquarters of New Orleans’ Black and Creole communities from the late eighteenth century. From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
The Rex organization was founded in 1872 in New Orleans. It is a Carnival Krewe which stages one of the city’s most celebrated parades of the Mardi Gras Day. According to the Rex historian, Stephen Hales, Rex was organized by New Orleans businessmen to lure tourism and business to New Orleans in the years after the American Civil War. One member of the Rex Organization is each year chosen to be the monarch of the organization: Rex. Rex is always a prominent person in the city. Being chosen Rex is one of the highest civic honors a person can receive in New Orleans. The Mayor of New Orleans traditionally hands over a symbolic key to the City of New Orleans to Rex for Mardi Gras Day. A consort is also chosen each year for Rex, and she is titled the «Queen of Carnival». Traditionally, the secretive membership was restricted to New Orleans white residents of European ancestry for most of its history. However, in 1991 the New Orleans city council passed an ordinance that required social organizations, including Mardi Gras Krewes, to certify publicly that they did not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, in order to obtain parade permits and other public licensure. In effect, the ordinance required these, and other, private social groups to abandon their traditional code of secrecy and identify their members for the city’s Human Relations Commission. The Comus organization (the oldest krewe in the city founded on 1852) withdrew from parading rather than identify its membership. Rex decided to comply with the new ordinance, rather than disappear from the main event of Mardi Gras Day. Two federal courts later declared that the ordinance was an unconstitutional infringement on First Amendment rights of free association, and an unwarranted intrusion on the privacy of the groups subject to the ordinance. The Supreme Court refused to hear the city’s appeal from this decision. Despite this, the other legendary krewe have not returned
Social status among the communities is aligned with specific forms of self-representation, such as the Rex Ball – organised as part of Mardi Gras – which stretches beyond the fun-filled dimension of a normal carnival. In a nutshell, it represents the most important social rite for New Orleans’ white elite. Enacting scenes from a royal court, with a King, a Queen, Dukes and Duchesses, the urban oligarchy, who are mostly descendants of old local white families, hails its own self via a carefully choreographed 150-year-old self-celebration . From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
What used to be the plantation system until 1863 lies today along the banks of the Mississippi River, between New Orleans and Natchez. Of that system, (hundreds of sugar and cotton plantations perpendicular to the river in elongated parcels with a direct access to the water) about twenty houses remain, a few miles from New Orleans. Most plantations disappeared with the arrival of oil, the region’s new resource since the 1930s. Some of these historic homes, all private property managed by cooperatives, have been converted into museums and included in the city tour circuits. They welcome national and international tourists. Others are closed to the public and retain their original form, with a main house, and cabins for slaves and other buildings. La Felicita plantation is an example. From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States
Social status among the communities is aligned with specific forms of self-representation, such as the Rex Ball – organised as part of Mardi Gras – which stretches beyond the fun-filled dimension of a normal carnival. In a nutshell, it represents the most important social rite for New Orleans’ white elite. Enacting scenes from a royal court, with a King, a Queen, Dukes and Duchesses, the urban oligarchy, who are mostly descendants of old local white families, hails its own self via a carefully choreographed 150-year-old self-celebration . From the series CASTA, Race, Memory and Community in the southern United States

 

 

Bio

Lo Calzo was born in Torino in 1979. After training in landscape architecture at Politecnico of Turin, he started my artistic endeavor in 2001. His photography is a documentary proposal, undertaken halfway between journalism and art, while focusing on postcolonial issues. Lo Calzo is interested in exploring through photography how and why minorities produce culture, counter-culture or sub-culture inside a dominant system. Most of his work is focused on minority issues and identity. The research by archives, books and meetings with anthropologists, historians and artists related to his subject is a good way to get a complex vision of it. The photographer’s reflections upon identity, race, gender, sexuality have been consistent throughout all of my photography series such as Morgante, The Promising Baby, Inside Niger. For five years, Lo Calzo has been working on a project about the legacy and memories of colonial slavery and antislavery struggles (Cham).

 

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