The Mardi Gras Indian Tradition Carrying Generations of Black History

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/mardi-gras-indian-tradition-carrying-171956430.html

The Mardi Gras Indian Tradition Carrying Generations of Black History

Adam Mahoney
Fri, February 13, 2026 at 9:19 AM PST

NEW ORLEANS — From the porch of his family’s home in Uptown New Orleans, Gerard “Little Bo” Dollis remembers being small enough to see only feathers — plumes of red and gold that blocked out the morning sun and the party bus idling behind his father.

“You couldn’t even see the bus,” said Dollis, also known as Big Chief Bo Dollis Jr. “That’s how big his headpiece was. All you could see were the lights fighting to peek through the feathers.”

As he aged, he came to understand that this sight — his father, Theodore “Bo” Dollis, towering in his Mardi Gras suit — was about more than just his father looking good, it was a declaration.

For generations, the Black Masking Indians of New Orleans have used Mardi Gras, and feathers, beads, and memory, to offer a rebuttal to the expectations of Black life in Louisiana. Now, as gentrification pushes longtime residents out of the neighborhoods where the tradition was born, chiefs and tribes use the art of masking to hold fast to the community, history, and joy that built Black New Orleans.

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