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26 | 2 Growing Up in a City That Care Forgot, New Orleans A Personal Perspective from Beverly Wright Growing up in New Orleans was a uniquely delightful experience, filled with the warmth of family and friends who felt like family. My early beginnings in the City of New Orleans bring forth nothing but wonderful memories. The air was always filled with the smell of good food and the sounds of music. As I remember it, we all truly celebrated life. These memories serve as an ironic backdrop for that period of harsh segregation where Jim Crow ruled. However, within the confines of segregation, the black community was able to nurture and maintain its unique cultural traditions, which were taught to the young and practiced by all, even across income and class lines. Even more so than Christmas, probably the most remembered and cherished holiday of my childhood, as well as in the lives of most adults, was Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday,” as it is called here. I can still recall the first time I heard, in the distance, the sounds of tambourines and crowds of people chanting in a language I could not understand. I could see a large group of people coming up the middle of the street singing and dancing and playing tambourines to the booming sounds of different drummers. The crowds were huge, so much so that I could not tell where the street ended and the sidewalk began. My eyes, widened by childhood curiosity, could hardly take in the beauty of the magnificent costumes I saw, with colors so brilliant it almost hurt to look at them through the bright sunshine. I had never seen anything so beautiful in all of my four-year-old life! Ah, yes, these were the Mardi Gras Indians in all their splendidly feathered glory, and they were coming toward me! As fate would have it, they stopped right in front of my door to begin a spectacular display of chanting and dancing. Growing Up in a City That Care Forgot, New Orleans | 27 Even to this day, I still cannot translate their chanting, but it was on that day I learned the beginning steps of the famous “Second Line.” And, as I made the steps my little feet could grasp, the “Big Chief” emerged from the crowd to declare, “Aay pockaway!” With that, everyone started singing and dancing with such intensity that I did what any other four-year-old would do—I joined in trying to mimic what I saw most everybody doing. An older cousin of mine saw me trying my feeble best and was impressed with my efforts. She immediately stopped me from gyrating in a frenzy and told me, “No, no, watch me. You move your feet like this.” As she began to give me my first official second line lesson, I watched and followed her steps. And so, I, like everyone in my community, became an authentic second line dancer. It was much later in life that I cultivated an appreciation for this unique form of an African/Haitian and New Orleans-inspired cultural tradition that has helped to shape the character of my city, making it a “place to visit” for most Americans regardless of race, ethnicity, or culture. The Spirit of New Orleans is in its people, and, without black people, New Orleans would lose its “soul.” In our most recent New Orleans vernacular since Katrina, “hurricane” is synonymous with danger, but, in my experience of growing up in New Orleans, the word “hurricane” was synonymous with heavy rain and a party. Why, we even named a very powerful alcoholic drink after this weather event. What I remember most was the rush to the supermarket for bread, milk, hot dogs, hamburger meat, and cold cuts. These were the staples necessary to survive the power outages that accompanied a “storm.” With an impending storm, the family would all meet at one house to “ride it out.” Inevitably, the storm would arrive during the night when we were tucked safely into our beds, the children huddled together not so much because we feared disaster but because it was fun for us to be with our extended family at this unique time. In the morning, the family would go out to survey the neighborhood. The greatest devastation that occurred, as I recall from those pre-Katrina days, were the garbage cans thrown about and tree branches blown to the ground. As I grew into adulthood...

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