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.
LEFT: Mardi Gras Indians parade in New Orleans in 1982. (Sydney Byrd for the U.S. National Park Service via Wikimedia Commons) RIGHT: Mardi Gras Tuesday afternoon, 2006 (Dereck Bridges via Wikimedia Commons)
There was a time in New Orleans, and across the state, where Black people could not move freely. This is when Africans who fled plantations formed maroon communities that sheltered with Native nations in the swamps and backwoods.
In those spaces of shared refuge, Black people began to mask “Indian” in part to honor Native communities, and as a way to move in public under laws that tried to criminalize Black people gathering.
And even in the city, as Mardi Gras traditions became commonplace, Black people were not allowed to join white gatherings or parade in white neighborhoods. Instead, they built their own Carnival on backstreets and neutral grounds, turning routes like Claiborne and Jackson into Black Mardi Gras long before the city recognized it.
LEFT: A photo shows Bo Dollis Jr. being dressed by his father, Theodore “Bo” Dollis. (Adam Mahoney/Capital B)
Every Mardi Gras morning, there is a moment that tribes call “coming out,” when a Chief steps from a doorway or rounds the corner and the full height and color of their suit suddenly fills the street. But what’s really happening is a renegotiation of power, said Dollis, now Big Chief of the Wild Magnolias.
In a world that keeps trying to make Blackness small and manageable, you can answer “with a suit so tall and bright it forces everyone around you to see you,” he said. “Every neighborhood had an Indian tribe meant to help us have a good time and enjoy Mardi Gras, but also so we could build networks to protect and celebrate each other.”
Dollis remembers the suits of his father, but he also remembers what his father was doing long before and after he wore the suit. His dad masked from the time he was 13 and kept at it into his 70s. The same networks that bring a Chief through the streets on Mardi Gras also move quietly all year, with chiefs checking on kids, helping families navigate schools and courts, and keeping a Black cultural presence on New Orleans’ quickly changing blocks.
Mardi Gras Indians wear intricate, hand-crafted suits that reflect generations of Black New Orleans tradition and storytelling. (Photos via Wikimedia Commons.)
Since 2000, New Orleans has lost over 100,000 Black residents, a shift that made the city whiter as a growth of short‑term rentals and rising rents have pushed Black families out of longtime cultural strongholds like Tremé, Central City, and the Lower Ninth Ward.
In the 7th Ward, that pressure is felt this Mardi Gras. The First and Last Stop Bar, where Black-masking tribes have gathered for nearly a century, is now at risk of closing after a white owner bought the building and served the bar owner an eviction notice. For Big Chiefs like Tyrone “Pie” Stevenson, who has led the Monogram Hunters out of that bar on Mardi Gras morning since he was a boy, the space is “sacred” and the loss would be felt generationally.
“They got so many spirits in that place, of the Indians who paved the way for me and everyone else,” Stevenson told the local New Orleans outlet The Lens.
In the week leading up to Mardi Gras, Dollis explained to Capital B Black masking traditions, the fight for Black New Orleans to remain in their communities, and the creativity that permeates through the city.
Capital B: What exactly is a Black Masking Indian, and how is the suit made?
Bo Dollis Jr.: A Black Masking Indian is really a neighborhood tribe. Every neighborhood had an Indian tribe, and that’s who you went and saw first — especially for that old lady down the street who couldn’t come off her porch to go see Mardi Gras. The suits you see now, that’s a year of work. It’s grown men sitting down sewing for hours and hours, all by hand, laying down feathers, doing the beadwork, putting all the fluffs on, because I’m going for competition. I want to be the best one out there.
And the suit is not just pretty. Every panel means something. A lot of us put history or what’s going on in the world on our suits, like scenes from Congo Square or Katrina, or pictures of our ancestors and people who fought so we could even be out here masking.
How has the tradition changed as New Orleans has gentrified?
Before Katrina, you had Indians all over the city. Now you got Indians staying in Atlanta, Texas, all over, and a lot of people that lived here for the culture not here anymore. In the uptown area now, when they see a second line band or Indians hit the street, they don’t understand what’s going on. Before Katrina, people knew, “Here comes the second line band.” That’s for the older people who can’t get off their porch so you can show them some joy. To me, that’s what’s scary: The culture is still here, but the people who understand it are getting pushed out.
What is the hardest thing about making a suit?
The hardest part is the dedication. It takes a year. You’re going to be fussing with your wife because she wants to spend her time with you, the kids want to go places, and you’re like, “No,” because you can’t go clubbing, you can’t hang out — you’re sitting back sewing. And then there’s the money. Things got more expensive and the suits got bigger compared to back then. You got to put money on the side for your feathers, and you’re taking money from your family. Nobody’s giving us grants, nobody’s paying for our feathers. To do this, you really got to love it.
How do we keep the tradition going as New Orleans changes?
You just got to keep it going. I love to have kids in it because I was a kid growing up in it, so once I get older, these traditions can be saved and kept going if the kids learn it now. I have kids run up to me saying, “I saw you on TV, I want to be like you,” and that’s a good feeling. They see somebody on TV and on the radio who’s in the community and not a drug dealer. We are not the big Zulu parade, we are not the big Rex parade — we that neighborhood front. Every time I want to quit or just give it up, I can’t. It might not be my children; it might be some other kids in the neighborhood who end up the next Big Chief, and that is OK as long as the culture keeps going.
TOP from left: A young Mardi Gras Indian (Derek Bridges via Wikimedia Commons); a Mardi Gras Indian at Algiers Riverfest 2009 (Mark Gstohl via Wikimedia Commons); a Mardi Gras Indian in an orange suit. (Mike Connor via Wikimedia Commons) BOTTOM: Bo Dollis Jr., also known as Big Chief Bo Dollis Jr., says the loss of longtime New Orleans residents makes his work even more important: “To me, that’s what’s scary: The culture is still here, but the people who understand it are getting pushed out.”