We expect to see at least some maskers on Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but the sight of parade-going gentlemen wearing coats and ties, and of ladies wearing long skirts and dressy hats is quite different from what one encounters on the streets in the 21st century. It is also interesting to see both black and white folks together in the crowd during what was, after all, the height of the Jim Crow era in the South. Indeed, the Daily Picayune reported on Ash Wednesday that, “Hundreds of negroes were masked, as usual, and mingled with the crowds, and the Indian groups made interesting features for the far-away people who did not know that they were Indians from the rear of Rampart Street exclusively.”

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