The most herculean while gratifying task of all was the effort to identify Robert J. McKinney. I began by contacting the African American Chicago Defender and Louisiana Weekly newspapers. Identification was muddy and murky until Lester Sullivan, Xavier University of Louisiana archivist, suggested consulting the alumni annals and discovered that McKinney was a 1933 graduate. Lester also knew that 1933 was one of the few years with a yearbook, given that this was during the Depression. Keith Weldon Medley remembered seeing McKinney’s name in the course of his research on Ernest Wright, also a 1933 Xavier graduate. But Keith also recalled that his mother spoke of McKinney. Ever the historian, Keith consulted his mother’s copy of her McDonogh No. 35 Public High School 1928 and 1929 yearbooks and found more references to McKinney. Soon a picture emerged of this heretofore elusive journalist and ethnographer. I consulted with Beverly Cook, archivist, Chicago Public Library, who located a number of sources that mention McKinney. Other librarians who searched their sources were Alaina W. Hébert, associate curator, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University, and Sean Benjamin, public services librarian, Louisiana Research Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane. Mary Linn Wernet, university archivist and records officer, Cammie G. Henry Research Center, Watson Library, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, was instrumental in connecting me with the numerous transcripts Robert McKinney produced. She also located Lyle Saxon’s letter to John Davis indicating McKinney’s starting date with the Louisiana Writers’ Project. In her office, Shelia Thompson willingly culled Robert Tallant’s file collections to locate McKinney’s work, copied them, and helped with processing.
Others acted as light posts along the way. Irene Wainwright, archivist, Louisiana Division–City Archives, New Orleans Public Library, helped me understand the “Hidden from History: Unknown New Orleanians” exhibition and processed the permissions for use of photographs from that display. Christopher Harter, director of library and reference services, Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, was helpful in reproducing the photograph from the Louisiana Weekly and giving a probable identification of the photographer. Sandra Law at the University of South Florida processed numerous interlibrary loan requests. I was happy to meet Girard Mouton III and learn of his enthusiasm for the history of the Baby Doll tradition. Girard had notes on Marcus Christian’s reference to the Baby Dolls in his classic poem, “I Am New Orleans.” Girard also alerted me to Victor Huber’s Mardi Gras: A Pictorial History of Carnival in New Orleans, which documents a chant that Baby Dolls sang in Creole patois.
I would also like to acknowledge Dwight Harris, who introduced me to Andrew Justin, Chief of Wild Tremé Mardi Gras Indians, whose mother and other female relatives masked as Baby Dolls during the height of the practice. Andrew introduced me to Denise Trepagnier, who masked with the Ernie K-Doe Baby Dolls, and I thank her for agreeing to be interviewed for this book. I thank Cherice Harrison-Nelson, who initiated an important project documenting women’s participation in the Mardi Gras Indian tradition which culminated in the annual Queen’s Rule panel, awards, and recognition celebration. I thereby learned about Mercedes Stevenson, Big Queen of Wild Tchoupitoulas, who masked for a time as a Baby Doll and had important eyewitness accounts from uptown New Orleans. I thank her daughter, Mary Kim Stevenson, for assisting with setting up the interview. I had long been intellectually enriched by Maurice Martinez’s perspective on the role of culture in bringing a respite from the suffering imposed under segregation, and on how cultural practices can serve as a method of protest when legal remedies failed. I was buoyed by his idea that Black masking practices offer a unique expression of the inner spirit that won’t be broken. This work is better because he gave of his time for a long interview.
As though they were calling me home in the midst of writing this book, I honor our foremothers and forefathers for their voices that still echo today through this project. I was privileged to become the associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana in the summer of 2011. The entire Xavier family has been very supportive. I thank President Norman Francis, who immediately understood the nature of the project in terms of uncovering unhidden history and the significance of preserving this heritage of our city. I thank Anil Kukreja, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Loren Blanchard, senior vice-president of academic affairs, for supporting this research. Michelle Balan, Dean’s Office executive assistant, and Gerald Villavaso, assistant dean, have guided visitors to meetings in our office, processed requests, and been enthusiastic about bringing the book and exhibition into fruition. I am grateful to Professor Ron Bechet for introducing me to the Seventh Ward initiative, The Porch, and sharing photographs of a group of young ladies who masked one year as Baby Dolls, creating a stunning and colorful scene while introducing this tradition to their generation.
Friend and colleague Gary Lemons was with me in the early conceptualization of my scholarly book project on “Sites of Alterity, Pedagogy in Public Places.” I found my way to the Baby Doll masking tradition as part of a larger question about where noninstitutionalized knowledge by marginalized people gets created, sustained, enacted, and transformed. Having been raised in New Orleans, I knew well that multiple sites of alternative knowledge production existed. My research on the Baby Dolls was to be a section in a chapter on women and non-heteronormative spaces in New Orleans. Once I met Millisia, my understanding, awe, and respect for this tradition grew. Another friend, Lycia Alexander-Guerra, provided constant support for my work. I thank her for her frequent check-ins, even calling me on Mardi Gras to make sure all was well. Michelle Mitcham made her home and hospitality available as I was pressed to complete the manuscript in the midst of my relocation preparations. I am grateful for her cheerful, insightful, and supportive friendship.
As this research required frequent trips to New Orleans, my dear cousin Sheila Vaz Gaskins and Kenneth Leslie generously made their home available. They checked on me often in evening outings to make sure I was safe. Each drove me around to appointments and accompanied me to many cultural events. Sheila made sure I always had breakfast, dinner, and snacks to take with me while I was on the go. Two other friends, angels really, Yolande Bradley and Cheryl Dejoie-LaCabe, have my eternal gratitude. Yolande opened her home during my many research trips and listened to my formative ideas. Cheryl’s generosity and lifelong friendship made this work exciting—not to mention her work on the graphic design for the exhibition brochure. Cheryl can make a stunning second-line umbrella.
Men play unique roles in the masking tradition. While men no longer mask as Baby Dolls (though they are in no way prevented), there are auxiliary roles that continue: serving as musician, masking as a “Skeleton,” providing logistics and security, and as oral historians. Calvin “DJ Hektik” Dyer, Eddie “Duke” Edwards, Cyril Duplesis, and Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes are central to Black masking traditions in New Orleans. A big thank you goes to Desiree Edwards for her hospitality in Edgard, Louisiana, when I interviewed her father. Royce Osborn has shared many resources, ideas, and connections, proving that he is a true colleague.
I thank Margaret Lovecraft, acquisitions editor at Louisiana State University Press, for making the publication process smooth. I am also grateful to Stan Ivester for his editorial efforts, which yielded a better manuscript.
The Baby Dolls themselves have contributed much to this research, making this practice come alive for me and for the readers of this book. They are Miriam Batiste Reed, Mercedes Stevenson, Geannie Thomas, Tee-Eva Perry, Denise Trepagnier, Karen Harris, Lois Nelson, Merline Kimble, Patricia McDonald, Tammy Montana, and Resa “Cinnamon Black” Wilson-Bazile. A special thank you is extended to Miriam Reed, whose deep involvement and knowledge about the practice allowed its hidden and easily overlooked elements to become visible.
The following 2010 New Orleans Society of Dance members graciously participated in a group interview for the Louisiana Cultural Vistas article: Diana “Lady MamaCita” Calix-Harvard, Keneth
ia “Lady N.O. Cutie” Morgan, Toya “504’s Finest” Payne-Smith, and Akella “Baby Doll Lady 9thWD Shortie” Norton. I learned from the 2012 company members as I was a participant-observer to their performance in the Zulu Social and Pleasure Club annual parade: Sara Green, Diamond Lawrence, Kashonna Conner, Juliana Wagner, Moriah Dyer, Whitney Dickerson, Ayanna Barham, Diana Calix-Harvard, Keah Moffett, Shekevia Bickham, Rennekia Goffney, and Kenethia Morgan. Finally, I would also like to thank the 2012 New Orleans Society of Dance’s Honorary Baby Doll Ladies for helping me to experience the pleasure of sisterhood through pageantry: Mia Gonzales, Joycelyn Green Askew, Charmagne Andrews, Marietta Robertson, Luliana “Lana” Mars, Linda Morgan, Heidi Thomas, Fabieyoun Walker, Yolanda Wilson, Rita Amedee, Kashonna Conner, Dolly Eaglin, Sherri Clark, Shenae Clark, Omika Williams, Michelle Briscoe-Long, Karla Ray, Janna Zinzi, Chicava H. Child, and Alana Harris.
APPENDIX A
A History of Baby Doll Masking in the Baby Dolls’ Own Words
ORIGINS OF THE TRADITION
The following quotations reveal the origins of the Baby Doll tradition. While popular sources have told the first half of the story, about a group of uptown women organizing for a singular event, full quotations from the women themselves reveal how these women who were familiar with organizing drew on their strengths and disciplined themselves into a group that followed the regular norms of social and pleasure clubs.
Sure they all call me Baby Doll, that’s my name. They have been call ing me Baby Doll for a long time. I guess eighteen years. How I come to get that name? Well, I’ll tell you.
I don’t know if I can take credit for organizing the Baby Dolls you asked me about, but I know I have always been a Baby Doll. I’m a Baby Doll today and every day a Baby Doll. A bunch of us got together way back eighteen years ago, I was just twenty years old. Since I was always dressed as a Baby Doll the other girls said they would dress like me. They would wear tight skirts with bloomers and a rimmed hat.
We use to meet in a room and dress at the same time. Sometimes we would lug our clothes to the house where we met the night before. This was done because a lot of our husbands and old men didn’t want us to be Baby Dolls because they knew a lot of men would follow us on the street and try to make mashes on [have sex with] us. We didn’t tell them how we were going to mask but just came out as a Baby Doll. And boy was we tight!?
We use to sing, clap our hands, and you know what people call raddy? Well, that’s the way we use to walk down the street.
—Clara Belle Moore, as told to Robert McKinney, February 9, 1940
Here is what happened in 1912. Ida Jackson, Millie Barnes, and Sallie Gail and a few other gals downtown was making up to mask on Mardi Gras day. I don’t know how they were going to mask, but they were going to mask. Well, I wasn’t good at forming a club so I told Leola Tate.… Old Lizzie and Leola got all the gals together.… We wouldn’t drink because we wanted to talk and get something done.
Leola and all of us were sitting around. The room was packed. Leola who use to belong to the church and one of the helping hands associations and who use to go to all those meetings, said, “Come to order.” And we came to order. She said “What is your pleasure?” We didn’t have one but we had a motion and an object. I raised that by saying we wanted to mask up in an association for Mardi Gras to outdo all [Black women] maskers. Somebody says that is fine and what are we going to call ourselves. A gal named Althea Brown said let’s be ourselves, let’s be Baby Dolls, that’s what the pimps call us. That suited everybody and then we went into motion. This was in 1912, the year the Baby Dolls started. We started coming up with money. Leola said, hold your horses. Let every tub stand on its own bottom. That suited everybody and the tubs stood.
Everybody agreed to have fifty dollars in her stocking and that we would see who could have the most money, that was fine. Somebody says what is the name of our association, and we said let’s call it the Million Dollar Baby Dolls and be red hot. Yes, indeed, we went out and got us some rainbow colors, panel backs and panel fronts made out of gold lace. Leola Tate was our head leader. No we ain’t had nothing to do with the Zulus. Old Johnny Metoyer wanted us to come along with them but we wouldn’t do it. We told Johnny we were out to do up some fun in our own way and we were not stopping at nothing, no indeed. Yes sir, the Zulus had their gang and we had ours.
Some of us made our dresses and some of us had them made. We were all looking sharp. There were thirty of us.… We were all good looking and had our stuff with us. Man, I’m telling you we had money all over us, even in our bloomers, and they didn’t have any zips.
And Mardi Gras day came and we hit the streets. I’m telling you we hit the streets looking forty and fine and mellow. We got out about 10:15. We had stacks of dollars in our stockings and in our hand. We went to Sam Bonart playground on Rampart and Poydras and bucked up against each other to see who had the most money. Leola had the most money; she had $102. I had $96 and I was second, but I had more money at home in case I ran out. There wasn’t a woman in the bunch who had less than $50. No, I don’t guess we had a million dollars but we had a hell of a lot of money.
…We went on downtown and talking about putting on the ritz.… We were smoking cigars and flinging ten and twenty dollar bills through the air. Sure, we use to sing, and boy did we shake on down. What we sang? We sang “When the Sun goes down” and “When the saints come marching through I want to be in that number.”
…When we hit downtown all the girls couldn’t do anything but look at us. They had to admit that we were stuff.… And there you have the starting of the Baby Dolls. Yeah, peace was made. All of the girls got together.
Leola went out and got a band. We had to pay two-fifty apiece for that. She got sign carriers. We had to pay a half-dollar apiece for that. That’s all the public expense I think we had, because there must have been more but Leola took care of that. We gave her money.
…Our band was made up of a cornet player, a flute player, drummer, and banjo player. The men made good music. Man, we wore those wide hats, and they were seldom worn because we got hot and pulled them off. I’m telling you that when the Million Dollar Baby Dolls strutted, they strutted, I’m telling you.
We on down the years never did ask help from anybody. In 1914 I. W. Harper Whiskey took some of our expense because we advertised their whiskey. We met every Sunday, we had a social club and paid dues, ten cents a week. We took care of our expense on Mardi Gras by taxing our members two and a half a head. Man and we never failed to have our green money with us or do our shaking on the street.
Of course we couldn’t keep our association. Some of got sick, some of them dropped out, but the Million Dollar Baby Dolls went on.
—Beatrice Hill, as told to Robert McKinney, March 11, 12, 14, 1940
THREAT TO THE TRADITION
Along with the Mardi Gras Indians, Baby Dolls turned out on St. Joseph’s feast night in full masked attire. No one knows exactly how the masking began, but by 1940 it was clearly a long-established and well-anticipated event. The moral authority of the Catholic Church had gotten fed up with the seeming desecration of the saint’s day and proposed that the maskers use some secular day to have their fun.
Captain Jackson Keeps the Baby Dolls from Strutting Their Stuff
St. Joseph night was clear, slightly chilly, but perfectly swell for mirth, especially Baby Doll fun. This is the night that is usually a second Mardi Gras for a lot of people, i.e., Baby Dolls and their ilk. They mask and wave their hips, sing low down blues songs to the accompaniment of loud cornets, banjos, drums and other instruments. They frolic on the streets much in the same manner as they do on Fat Tuesday; their shimmies are strictly solid and always attract large crowds.
In their minds, they had built up St. Joseph night as “the biggest night we ever had”; they had re-pressed their long-waisted, pleated skirts of bright colors and had turned enough tricks to have green backs in their stockings. Nothing was going to stop the baby Dolls, not eve
n a storm. “There is always an inside.”
Well, there was no storm, but something happened that was much worse, its effects are still being felt and promulgated. The Archbishop stepped into the picture and said there should not be any masking because it fell in the Lenten Season. He suggested April 2 instead. Like Jennie Watts said, “Who is the Archbishop? He ain’t none of our pappy,” and she is a Baby Doll whose attitudes about most things is definitely indifferent. Because the Archbishop made himself clear in the matter, Captain Jackson of the First Precinct sent out a word that there must be no masking, only a few Baby Dolls accepted his message; they promised to mask and were going to do so. They were so persistent the usually calm police captain became irate and contacted them himself. Baby Irene, some kind of dictator in Baby Doll affairs, stated, “The Captain says, ‘I don’t want no masking, and if any of you do, so I’m going put your black asses in jail.’ Cause, I personally wouldn’t give a fuck, but I don’t feel like going back to jail. I just got out.”
The "Baby Dolls" Page 15