March 2, 2011 • 23 mins
Mardi Gras has been a legal holiday in New Orleans since 1875, and the annual Fat Tuesday celebration has become a legendary part of the city's culture. But which Mardi Gras celebration was the best? Listen in as Deblina and Sarah explore Mardi Gras.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast
I'm to Believe a chalk reboarding and I'm Sarah Dowdy.
And we couldn't let Marty Gras pass without doing a
podcast on it, especially because, as you know, Sarah, I
(00:23):
used to live and work in Mobile, Alabama, which is
said to be the site of America's first Marty Grass celebration.
So just a little piece of trivia for you there.
It may come as a surprise to a lot of
people because although it may have been the first in Mobile,
the holiday is most often associated with the city we're
going to focus on today, which is New Orleans, Louisiana.
(00:43):
And that's yeah, that's the big one obviously. Yeah you've
been to that one, right, I have been to that one.
I went. I've been twice, but I went a couple
of years ago, and I remember one of the funniest
things was like checking flight information at the New Orleans
Airport and seeing that Zulu coconut were acceptable for like
that month only, Well they have to be. That's one
(01:04):
of the best prizes to the best throws to get
scary too, a little scarier, But that's a topic for
another day. I think today we just want to focus
a little bit on a different event that happened on
a very specific Marty Gras many years ago. But back
to New Orleans and it's Marty Gras celebration. It's been
going on for so long, and it's such a big
(01:25):
part of the city's cultural identity and its economy. I mean,
it draws thousands of tourists every single year, like me,
like you, It's really hard to imagine the city purposely
canceling it for any reason at all. Yet that's exactly
what happened in nineteen seventy nine, when a police strike
of all things brought Mardi Gras festivities to a grinding halt,
deterred tourists, and cast kind of a shadow over New
(01:48):
orleans first Black mayor's first Marty Grown office. So, yeah,
we're just gonna take a little look into why that
happened in the first place, why a police strike at
Mardy Gras of all times, and also take a look
at it um what caused the strife between the city's
administration in its police department in the first place, and
how that led to the Marty Gras cancelation. And this
(02:10):
is kind of an interesting part, but we're gonna look
into why some locals still refer to the Marty Gras
of nineteen seventy nine as the best Marty Gras. Ever,
we were not being ironic with the title of this episode.
Some people think it really is the best. Yeah. But first,
of course, as we always do, will give you a
little background on New Orleans Marty Gras, which is widely
(02:30):
known as the greatest free show on Earth. And now,
if you're only familiar with Marty Grass this big, huge,
raucous party, you may be surprised to learn that the
celebration actually has its roots in Catholicism. Carnival Is. Marty
Gras is sometimes known begins on Epiphany or Twelfth Night
in early January and last until Lent, and Pope Gregory
(02:51):
is the one who actually had it declared a holiday
an official holiday in fifty two, and the actual Marty
Gras Day, known as Fat Tuesday, is considered the one
last day to kind of party, get your debauchery in
before limp begins. Yeah, before Ash Wednesday. Um, and it's
celebrated not just in New Orleans and Mobile too, Obviously,
(03:12):
it's celebrated all over the world. Some of the big
celebrations are in Rio, there's one in Sydney. Lots of
people have fun Marty Gras parties, definitely, But how did
it get to New Orleans. Well, historical counts about that
are a little bit sketchy as to the exact year,
but in general Marty Gras most people think it may
have been celebrated in New Orleans as early at seventeen eighteen,
(03:34):
which was the year that the city was founded. It
was really small scale at that point though. I mean,
we're talking only wealthy, high society folks in exclusive social
clubs throwing exclusive but very elaborate and fancy society balls.
It's a it's a party you're not invited to. Probably
write a party we wouldn't be invited to. No editors allowed,
(03:56):
none of the parades or anything like that that they
have today. Little class people marked also marked this holiday,
but they marked the beginning of Lent by attending church
services and having more small and formal events. Yeah, but
starting around the eighteen hundreds there was a new generation
of wealthy people who weren't as interested in these really tiny,
(04:17):
exclusive elite balls. And they started forming fraternal clubs, and
these clubs did some of the parading that were that
we associate with Marty Grass today. Um, but it wasn't
quite like the parade. It wasn't the big floats and
the costumes and all of that. It It was more
like just s meandering around and getting reality, causing trouble
(04:40):
in the streets, just taking the party outside essentially, right.
So the first really big change to that came in
eighteen fifty seven when the Mystic Crew of Comus appeared
on the scene, and this was kind of the intro
to Marty Grass as we know it. This was the
first appearance of the more organized parade, the floats, the
live music, the rev lers in costume, and the ball
(05:02):
that went along with it. So it was sort of
the prototype for all the crews that came after that.
The Twelfth Night Revelers came soon after that in eighteen seventies,
so you just started seeing more and more of The
Rex debuted in eighteen seventy two, which was a big
deal because it introduced the first day parade, which really
increased participation from you know, various citizens, kids could take part,
(05:27):
probably more because it was a little more respectable as
opposed to that, you know, just meandering in the streets
that you mentioned before, and introduced a new King of
Carnival to the event. Um, it's a pretty big deal.
And then I think the same year, the Nights of
Moments made their debut. So yeah, we're having all of
these crews that we still know today, uh coming into
(05:48):
existence and really forming Marty Girl like we know it.
But around the time that our story is going to
take place, there was another really big change, probably the
first really big change about a hundred years here, and
it came out of the New Orleans hospitality industry. They
were looking for ways to start making a little bit
(06:08):
more money off of Mardi Gras by having bigger parades
and balls that were less exclusive and celebrities involved, you know,
really really figure out ways to draw tourists to New Orleans, right,
And so when they introduced Bacchus in nineteen sixty nine,
that's exactly the purpose that served. It took place the
Sunday before Marty Grass, so it gave people a reason
(06:31):
to kind of extend their stay in town, and it
was the template for what would be known as the
Super Crew. So it featured national celebrities. I think the
first monarch was actor Danny Kay. Huge dinner dances and
several parades followed suits. Several crews I should say followed
suit after this. In Demion was one um. It used
to be a small suburban parade and it became one
(06:54):
of these super crews around nineteen seventy four. So this
was kind of a state of New Orleans Marty gras
around the time when Ernest Morial, who was also known
as Dutch Morial, became mayor of the city in nineteen
He was forty nine when he took office, and he
was the city's first black mayor, so pretty big deal
at the time. His resume was really impressive. He'd had
I think previous careers as a local and double a
(07:16):
c P president and assistant U S Attorney, a state
legislature and a judge, and at the time he seemed
kind of like a long shot to win the election
when he entered the mayoral race, but he ended up
winning of the black vote and twenty percent of the
white vote, which made him the black elected official with
the largest constituency in the South at the time. Yeah,
(07:36):
but obviously with only of the white vote. Things were
kind of shaky for him when he took office, and
according to New Orleans Magazine, he faced a lot of
resentment from some whites who felt that they were losing
their political power, and even the Carnival establishment, who you know,
they're sort of the elite whites of the city, or
(07:57):
some of them largely white. They were concerned earned how
he would quote regard their social structure and tradition. So, yeah,
a little tension coming into this Marti Gras, and that
was just one aspect of it. On the other hand,
he had an even more pressing problem that was coming up,
and that was a situation with the New Orleans Police Department.
They'd been unhappy with their salaries and their whole benefits
(08:20):
package for a while before Morial came to office, but
he made matters worse in a couple of ways. One
of those ways is that his first one of his
first official acts as mayor, i should say, was tax reform,
which kind of sent a message to the police that,
whether it was true or not, it sent the message
that he didn't really care so much about their economic
plight at the time. The other thing that he did
(08:42):
was that he chose a guy named James C. Parsons
who was formerly police chief in Birmingham, Alabama, as his
superintendent of police. Now, Parsons was really qualified for his job,
but the local police they took this as kind of
an affront because then it kind of looked like the
mayor had passed up other qualified people within their department.
None of them were good enough, right, And I think
(09:02):
that's sort of how promotions had been done before in
the department, someone from within had been promoted up. So
it was kind of a slap in the face. Yeah,
So he's obviously dealing with some problems in the police department.
And one really important thing to keep in mind before
we we get into the later issues in this episode
is that at this point the city was definitely more
(09:24):
on the side of the cops, more sympathetic to their
plight than to the new guy, the new mayor. So
the situation escalated and talks of strikes started actually mid
to late ninety eight, since the police unions were having
trouble bringing the city to the table to even talk
about the things they were concerned about. So just to
give you a little background before we go too much
(09:44):
into the whole strike discussion. There were two unions at
the time to police unions. One was the Fraternal Order
of Police the FOP. This was made mostly a veteran
police and retirees. And then on the other hand, there
was the Policeman's Association of New Orleans p a n O.
And the Piano had more members in the FOP, and
those numbers kind of continued to grow as the situation progressed.
(10:06):
And they were led by a patrolman named Vincent Bruno,
who had recently been a part of getting the Piano
affiliated with the Teamsters, and this is one reason that
Moril really didn't want to negotiate with them. He didn't
like that association with the Teamsters very much. The Piano
basically their goal was they wanted to win soul bargaining
agent status with the city, so they wanted to be
(10:27):
the ones that the city was bargaining with making decisions with,
rather than the FOP. So they kind of had the
same goals in mind, I guess both unions, but it
was sort of a little struggle between them as to
who was actually the one coming to the table and
a different kind of membership to UM. But by the
beginning of nineteen seventy nine, the city was conceding to
(10:49):
some of their requests. They approved a fifteen percent pay
raise for the department, but the police weren't satisfied with that,
and part of the reason was because their benefits, including
thickly vacation time, had been slashed at the same time,
so it was it was essentially just canceling out what
they had lost. Um So p a n O started
(11:10):
to seriously plan a walk out at that point because
they weren't happy with the situation, and it took place
on February eighth, nineteen seventy nine, and it lasted for
thirty hours and was considered pretty successful. There were more
than one thousand policemen out of fifteen hundred who participated,
so a pretty big crowd and a lot of the
(11:31):
more T shirts that had the slogan had the police
seal with the slogan take this job and shove it,
so you can imagine that made a big impression on
the city. Yeah, they were not messing around, and they
continued to get support. Many FOP members actually switched over
and joined the p a n O side, And in
(11:52):
addition to that, there were some commanding officers including Parsons
who refused to take discipline reaction on the strikers, so
presumably he's like the mayor's own guy exactly, So again
a lot of support coming in here. Another problem that
presented itself for the mayor was that Marti Gras, which
is typically celebrated for two weeks prior to fat Tuesday,
(12:13):
was fast approaching, so his hand was kind of forced
in the situation, and he ended up agreeing to a
few things, including the following recognition of p A and
O as the exclusive bargaining agent with the police, the
commencement of immediate negotiations for the things that the police wanted,
amnesty for all the strikers, restoration of leave benefits, and
(12:34):
double time and half pay for six holidays. So that's
just a few of the things. I think there were
a few more, but the police, suffice to say, considered
this a pretty big victory. Yeah, this was a huge
coup for them. But the problem was that there wasn't
an official contract made at this point, and they really
needed to get something in writing to make sure that
it wasn't just going to be all smoke and mirrors
(12:56):
well and to make sure that the mayor actually had
the power to promise them these things, right. That was
also something that was in question. Did the mayor actually
have the power to promise things like pay increases? They
weren't sure, so they wanted to get it all down
and make it official, so they gave the city a
week deadline. Made the deadline February six, which was a Friday,
(13:17):
or they would strike again. As kind of a backup,
the Teamsters flew in a guy named Joseph Valenti from Detroit,
and this just stirred the pot even more because for
one thing, he was an outsider and for another thing,
I mean, this is kind of stereotyping, we know, but
at the time, people thought, Okay, he's got an Italian name,
and the Teamsters they have these sort of mob affiliation,
(13:39):
so it just it didn't look good. And more than that,
I think it just gave the city administration some more
fuel to not really cooperate with their requests. Yeah that
they thought bringing in this outsider was even necessary. Um,
but the negotiations didn't speed up with this Valenti guy present.
In fact, they go really really slowly and Marty Gras
(14:02):
celebrations were set to kick off that weekend, So Mariel
asked for a quote cooling down period until after Marti Gras,
like please, can we all just put our differences aside
us and like get through Marty Gras and then get
back to the table. But P A n O wouldn't
agree to that cooling off period. They wanted all their
issues to be resolved before the festival, before the big
(14:25):
weekend began, and they wanted the unresolved issues to be
submitted to binding arbitration, which basically meant that if the
two sides couldn't come to an agreement together, there would
be a third party who would decide the issues, decide
the outcome of the issues, and each of the other
sides would be legally bound to honor that decision. And
(14:46):
of course Mariel was not going to have that. Um
I mean, who would this third party be in the
first place. It just seemed like too big of a
risk for the city to take. Yeah, so Mariel kind
of drew the line in the sand there, and the
second strike did in fact begin that Saturday, February, and
Moril ended up having to cancel that first big weekend
of Marty Gross celebrations. That first weekend of parades that
(15:09):
everyone was so looking forward to. He's still at that
point had hoped so that the next week of celebrations
would continue. But they had a lot of things to
work out. Yeah, and the Piano was still slow to negotiate,
even though it was the group that originally wanted to
speed this whole process up. So um Memorial had to
call in the National Guard about one thousand, one hundred
(15:31):
troops and some of the state police to to supplement
the non striking police force, because obviously, you can't even
have a canceled Marty Gras with no police. There's still
gonna be people in New Orleans milling about. You still
need police around. And I think that they canceled time off.
They made him work twelve hour shifts. So it was
a lot to take on for those who weren't part
(15:53):
of the strike. As they were negotiating, Moril had to
start announcing parade cancelations one day at a time, which
was sort of torturous for the city. In fact, in
a New Orleans magazine story, writer Liz Scott refers to it,
I think in a really interesting way. She says, to
the parade loving citizenry, it was like Chinese water torture.
(16:13):
Every one at a time, one falls and thanks God.
Dramatic too, I guess because the police side was trying
to escalate the situation to hopefully resolve it before Marty Gras.
But Valenti and Bruno started going on TV and showing
up on the front pages of the newspapers, and they
did some stuff that really took things too far. Um,
(16:35):
the union bowed to stay off work, quote until doomsday
if necessary. They made it clear that they didn't give
a hoot about Marty Gras. Um. They were looking to
resolve these issues, and they passed out one hundred thousand
leaflets to tourists that some of the big points of
entry to the city up, saying that New Orleans was unsafe.
(16:56):
You know, turned back, don't bother going to Marty Gras
because we're not here to protect you. So now not
only were there negotiations just incidentally preventing Marty grow from
taking place, they were actively going out and discouraging tourists,
discouraging dollars from coming into the city, and actively going
out there and preventing Marty Garraw from happening. Yeah, and
(17:16):
Baruno then took it to the next level for real,
and the heat of the moment, he told reporter that
if the police didn't get their way, they would quote
wreck the city. So nobody likes to hear that from
the guy representing the police group. And he apologized later,
but it was it was really too late, and by
this point public sentiment did a complete one eighty. They
(17:40):
were no longer on the side of the police and
and trying to support their requests. They turned against the
police because everyone was affected by what was going on,
either financially, you know, you have people running hotels and
restaurants and they're expecting all those tourists to come in,
or personally because Marty gross fun and people who live
(18:01):
in New Orleans often work long and hard to get
ready for these parades, planning their costumes and and working
on it. So for all of those people who were
planning on attending, and for celebs. Two celebrities were involved.
Don't forget about that Ron Howard Ron Howard, Yes, he
was apparently inconvenienced by the strike. Ron Howard, Frankie Avalon
(18:23):
the rock group Kiss. All these people were supposed to
be raining over various parades that year, and they didn't
get to come. So yeah, people are understandably not very
happy about what the police is doing at this point,
and so Marty Graw organizers do something that's really interesting.
They decide that they weren't going to take this lying
down anymore. No. It was actually in a really famous
(18:46):
gesture the carnival captains, they literally all got up and
stood behind the mayor as he announced on Tuesday, February
twentie that all remaining Marty Gras parades would be canceled,
the entire thing, the entire celebration. One of the crew
captains said, We're not going to let Marty Gras be
held hostage by the teamsters. It is wrong to use
Marty grass blackmail in this dispute. The same procedure can
(19:10):
be used every year, and we're not going to let
our organizations be puppets in such a plan. So with that,
the police were out of their bargaining chip. Marty Gras
was not going to be used by anyone, and the
mayor and the administration really got the upper hand and
the strike lasted for about sixteen days total, but the
anti strike sentiment remained really high, and once Marty Gras
(19:34):
was over and the police didn't have that leverage anymore.
The whole thing really fizzled out. I mean the city,
the city had the control. Yeah, if there was a winner,
the city certainly turned out to be the winner in
the situation, which I don't know, we're kind of talking
about it before. It was sort of unfortunate because the
police did there what they wanted was valid, had legitimate complaints,
(19:55):
they really did. But then the way that things turned
out once they made Marty Gras part of their plan
for leverage their bargaining chip, as you said, it sort
of all fell apart definitely. And as for Marty Gras itself,
I mean officially canceled. That means it's ruined, right. I mean,
some people estimate that the city lost six million dollars
(20:17):
because of the cancelation. And again this is nineteen nine,
so it's a lot. But the Marty Grass spirit and
celebrations somehow managed to live on, which is really interesting me.
The old line cruise on one hand, Comus Rex Momus proteus.
They didn't parade. They said, if they couldn't pray in
the city, they didn't want to parade at all. But
(20:38):
there were a few others like Endymion that moved their
parades to the suburbs. But also on Fat Tuesday, while
there weren't any official praise in the city, it was
just this gorgeous, warm day, and it turned out that
a lot of locals really did just throw on costumes
and head down to the French Quarter and they partied anyway,
extra hard, apparently extra hard dancing, second lining in the streets,
(21:02):
and it was almost sort of like some people describe
it as an active defiance towards the strikers. Yeah, and
probably just letting loose, cutting some of those tensions that
had been so high in the city for the past
few weeks. And um, incidentally, there were a few other
acts of defiance. Um there's a rumor that in a
voodoo shop on Bourbon Joe Valenti hex dollies were for sale.
(21:26):
Um already stuck full of hat pins so I could
get your revenge, I guess on the team stir. Yeah,
we giggled a little bit, but I don't know if
that's really funny. Actually it's kind of frightening. Maybe not
so funny after all. So because of all the fun
that they had partying in the streets, texting people, um,
and of course the lack of tourists in there, that
(21:48):
was another aspect of it. Some did call it the
best Marty Gras ever. In the Scott article she actually
describes it, and again I really love the way she
says this one of those. She describes it as one
of those arming little weddings with just immediate family and
close friends. So yeah, I mean, it sounds like a
good time, and I can see how it would be
a drag to lose all your money if you were
(22:11):
maybe in the hotel business, but it also does still
sound like a really great party. It does. And as
for whether it was the best Marty Grab or not,
I think maybe a lot of people now would call
the two thousand six Marty Grout the US one of
the best ones ever because that was the one that
happened just a few months after Katrina, and it was
sort of, you know, proof that the city was alive
(22:31):
and kitching. Yeah, resurgence and restoration, and both of these
situations though, seemed to kind of really reflect the enduring spirit,
you know, not to sound hokey, but the enduring spirit
of natives of New Orleans. Definitely Okay, well that's the
end of this Marty Gross story. But if you have
your own Marty Gross story g rated of course, that
(22:52):
you would like to share with us, please feel free
to email us at History Podcast at how stuff works
dot com. You can also look us up on Facebook
and where it Twitter at Myston History. And we also
have an article on Marty Grawl conveniently enough, if you're
looking to do a little bit of light reading before
you get in the car, or board a plane, or
just go outside your door and enjoy the celebrations. It's
(23:13):
called how Marty Gral Works, and you can find it
by searching for Marty Gral on our homepage at www
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(23:35):
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today on iTunes.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast
I'm to Believe a chalk reboarding and I'm Sarah Dowdy.
And we couldn't let Marty Gras pass without doing a
podcast on it, especially because, as you know, Sarah, I
(00:23):
used to live and work in Mobile, Alabama, which is
said to be the site of America's first Marty Grass celebration.
So just a little piece of trivia for you there.
It may come as a surprise to a lot of
people because although it may have been the first in Mobile,
the holiday is most often associated with the city we're
going to focus on today, which is New Orleans, Louisiana.
(00:43):
And that's yeah, that's the big one obviously. Yeah you've
been to that one, right, I have been to that one.
I went. I've been twice, but I went a couple
of years ago, and I remember one of the funniest
things was like checking flight information at the New Orleans
Airport and seeing that Zulu coconut were acceptable for like
that month only, Well they have to be. That's one
(01:04):
of the best prizes to the best throws to get
scary too, a little scarier, But that's a topic for
another day. I think today we just want to focus
a little bit on a different event that happened on
a very specific Marty Gras many years ago. But back
to New Orleans and it's Marty Gras celebration. It's been
going on for so long, and it's such a big
(01:25):
part of the city's cultural identity and its economy. I mean,
it draws thousands of tourists every single year, like me,
like you, It's really hard to imagine the city purposely
canceling it for any reason at all. Yet that's exactly
what happened in nineteen seventy nine, when a police strike
of all things brought Mardi Gras festivities to a grinding halt,
deterred tourists, and cast kind of a shadow over New
(01:48):
orleans first Black mayor's first Marty Grown office. So, yeah,
we're just gonna take a little look into why that
happened in the first place, why a police strike at
Mardy Gras of all times, and also take a look
at it um what caused the strife between the city's
administration in its police department in the first place, and
how that led to the Marty Gras cancelation. And this
(02:10):
is kind of an interesting part, but we're gonna look
into why some locals still refer to the Marty Gras
of nineteen seventy nine as the best Marty Gras. Ever,
we were not being ironic with the title of this episode.
Some people think it really is the best. Yeah. But first,
of course, as we always do, will give you a
little background on New Orleans Marty Gras, which is widely
(02:30):
known as the greatest free show on Earth. And now,
if you're only familiar with Marty Grass this big, huge,
raucous party, you may be surprised to learn that the
celebration actually has its roots in Catholicism. Carnival Is. Marty
Gras is sometimes known begins on Epiphany or Twelfth Night
in early January and last until Lent, and Pope Gregory
(02:51):
is the one who actually had it declared a holiday
an official holiday in fifty two, and the actual Marty
Gras Day, known as Fat Tuesday, is considered the one
last day to kind of party, get your debauchery in
before limp begins. Yeah, before Ash Wednesday. Um, and it's
celebrated not just in New Orleans and Mobile too, Obviously,
(03:12):
it's celebrated all over the world. Some of the big
celebrations are in Rio, there's one in Sydney. Lots of
people have fun Marty Gras parties, definitely, But how did
it get to New Orleans. Well, historical counts about that
are a little bit sketchy as to the exact year,
but in general Marty Gras most people think it may
have been celebrated in New Orleans as early at seventeen eighteen,
(03:34):
which was the year that the city was founded. It
was really small scale at that point though. I mean,
we're talking only wealthy, high society folks in exclusive social
clubs throwing exclusive but very elaborate and fancy society balls.
It's a it's a party you're not invited to. Probably
write a party we wouldn't be invited to. No editors allowed,
(03:56):
none of the parades or anything like that that they
have today. Little class people marked also marked this holiday,
but they marked the beginning of Lent by attending church
services and having more small and formal events. Yeah, but
starting around the eighteen hundreds there was a new generation
of wealthy people who weren't as interested in these really tiny,
(04:17):
exclusive elite balls. And they started forming fraternal clubs, and
these clubs did some of the parading that were that
we associate with Marty Grass today. Um, but it wasn't
quite like the parade. It wasn't the big floats and
the costumes and all of that. It It was more
like just s meandering around and getting reality, causing trouble
(04:40):
in the streets, just taking the party outside essentially, right.
So the first really big change to that came in
eighteen fifty seven when the Mystic Crew of Comus appeared
on the scene, and this was kind of the intro
to Marty Grass as we know it. This was the
first appearance of the more organized parade, the floats, the
live music, the rev lers in costume, and the ball
(05:02):
that went along with it. So it was sort of
the prototype for all the crews that came after that.
The Twelfth Night Revelers came soon after that in eighteen seventies,
so you just started seeing more and more of The
Rex debuted in eighteen seventy two, which was a big
deal because it introduced the first day parade, which really
increased participation from you know, various citizens, kids could take part,
(05:27):
probably more because it was a little more respectable as
opposed to that, you know, just meandering in the streets
that you mentioned before, and introduced a new King of
Carnival to the event. Um, it's a pretty big deal.
And then I think the same year, the Nights of
Moments made their debut. So yeah, we're having all of
these crews that we still know today, uh coming into
(05:48):
existence and really forming Marty Girl like we know it.
But around the time that our story is going to
take place, there was another really big change, probably the
first really big change about a hundred years here, and
it came out of the New Orleans hospitality industry. They
were looking for ways to start making a little bit
(06:08):
more money off of Mardi Gras by having bigger parades
and balls that were less exclusive and celebrities involved, you know,
really really figure out ways to draw tourists to New Orleans, right,
And so when they introduced Bacchus in nineteen sixty nine,
that's exactly the purpose that served. It took place the
Sunday before Marty Grass, so it gave people a reason
(06:31):
to kind of extend their stay in town, and it
was the template for what would be known as the
Super Crew. So it featured national celebrities. I think the
first monarch was actor Danny Kay. Huge dinner dances and
several parades followed suits. Several crews I should say followed
suit after this. In Demion was one um. It used
to be a small suburban parade and it became one
(06:54):
of these super crews around nineteen seventy four. So this
was kind of a state of New Orleans Marty gras
around the time when Ernest Morial, who was also known
as Dutch Morial, became mayor of the city in nineteen
He was forty nine when he took office, and he
was the city's first black mayor, so pretty big deal
at the time. His resume was really impressive. He'd had
I think previous careers as a local and double a
(07:16):
c P president and assistant U S Attorney, a state
legislature and a judge, and at the time he seemed
kind of like a long shot to win the election
when he entered the mayoral race, but he ended up
winning of the black vote and twenty percent of the
white vote, which made him the black elected official with
the largest constituency in the South at the time. Yeah,
(07:36):
but obviously with only of the white vote. Things were
kind of shaky for him when he took office, and
according to New Orleans Magazine, he faced a lot of
resentment from some whites who felt that they were losing
their political power, and even the Carnival establishment, who you know,
they're sort of the elite whites of the city, or
(07:57):
some of them largely white. They were concerned earned how
he would quote regard their social structure and tradition. So, yeah,
a little tension coming into this Marti Gras, and that
was just one aspect of it. On the other hand,
he had an even more pressing problem that was coming up,
and that was a situation with the New Orleans Police Department.
They'd been unhappy with their salaries and their whole benefits
(08:20):
package for a while before Morial came to office, but
he made matters worse in a couple of ways. One
of those ways is that his first one of his
first official acts as mayor, i should say, was tax reform,
which kind of sent a message to the police that,
whether it was true or not, it sent the message
that he didn't really care so much about their economic
plight at the time. The other thing that he did
(08:42):
was that he chose a guy named James C. Parsons
who was formerly police chief in Birmingham, Alabama, as his
superintendent of police. Now, Parsons was really qualified for his job,
but the local police they took this as kind of
an affront because then it kind of looked like the
mayor had passed up other qualified people within their department.
None of them were good enough, right, And I think
(09:02):
that's sort of how promotions had been done before in
the department, someone from within had been promoted up. So
it was kind of a slap in the face. Yeah,
So he's obviously dealing with some problems in the police department.
And one really important thing to keep in mind before
we we get into the later issues in this episode
is that at this point the city was definitely more
(09:24):
on the side of the cops, more sympathetic to their
plight than to the new guy, the new mayor. So
the situation escalated and talks of strikes started actually mid
to late ninety eight, since the police unions were having
trouble bringing the city to the table to even talk
about the things they were concerned about. So just to
give you a little background before we go too much
(09:44):
into the whole strike discussion. There were two unions at
the time to police unions. One was the Fraternal Order
of Police the FOP. This was made mostly a veteran
police and retirees. And then on the other hand, there
was the Policeman's Association of New Orleans p a n O.
And the Piano had more members in the FOP, and
those numbers kind of continued to grow as the situation progressed.
(10:06):
And they were led by a patrolman named Vincent Bruno,
who had recently been a part of getting the Piano
affiliated with the Teamsters, and this is one reason that
Moril really didn't want to negotiate with them. He didn't
like that association with the Teamsters very much. The Piano
basically their goal was they wanted to win soul bargaining
agent status with the city, so they wanted to be
(10:27):
the ones that the city was bargaining with making decisions with,
rather than the FOP. So they kind of had the
same goals in mind, I guess both unions, but it
was sort of a little struggle between them as to
who was actually the one coming to the table and
a different kind of membership to UM. But by the
beginning of nineteen seventy nine, the city was conceding to
(10:49):
some of their requests. They approved a fifteen percent pay
raise for the department, but the police weren't satisfied with that,
and part of the reason was because their benefits, including
thickly vacation time, had been slashed at the same time,
so it was it was essentially just canceling out what
they had lost. Um So p a n O started
(11:10):
to seriously plan a walk out at that point because
they weren't happy with the situation, and it took place
on February eighth, nineteen seventy nine, and it lasted for
thirty hours and was considered pretty successful. There were more
than one thousand policemen out of fifteen hundred who participated,
so a pretty big crowd and a lot of the
(11:31):
more T shirts that had the slogan had the police
seal with the slogan take this job and shove it,
so you can imagine that made a big impression on
the city. Yeah, they were not messing around, and they
continued to get support. Many FOP members actually switched over
and joined the p a n O side, And in
(11:52):
addition to that, there were some commanding officers including Parsons
who refused to take discipline reaction on the strikers, so
presumably he's like the mayor's own guy exactly, So again
a lot of support coming in here. Another problem that
presented itself for the mayor was that Marti Gras, which
is typically celebrated for two weeks prior to fat Tuesday,
(12:13):
was fast approaching, so his hand was kind of forced
in the situation, and he ended up agreeing to a
few things, including the following recognition of p A and
O as the exclusive bargaining agent with the police, the
commencement of immediate negotiations for the things that the police wanted,
amnesty for all the strikers, restoration of leave benefits, and
(12:34):
double time and half pay for six holidays. So that's
just a few of the things. I think there were
a few more, but the police, suffice to say, considered
this a pretty big victory. Yeah, this was a huge
coup for them. But the problem was that there wasn't
an official contract made at this point, and they really
needed to get something in writing to make sure that
it wasn't just going to be all smoke and mirrors
(12:56):
well and to make sure that the mayor actually had
the power to promise them these things, right. That was
also something that was in question. Did the mayor actually
have the power to promise things like pay increases? They
weren't sure, so they wanted to get it all down
and make it official, so they gave the city a
week deadline. Made the deadline February six, which was a Friday,
(13:17):
or they would strike again. As kind of a backup,
the Teamsters flew in a guy named Joseph Valenti from Detroit,
and this just stirred the pot even more because for
one thing, he was an outsider and for another thing,
I mean, this is kind of stereotyping, we know, but
at the time, people thought, Okay, he's got an Italian name,
and the Teamsters they have these sort of mob affiliation,
(13:39):
so it just it didn't look good. And more than that,
I think it just gave the city administration some more
fuel to not really cooperate with their requests. Yeah that
they thought bringing in this outsider was even necessary. Um,
but the negotiations didn't speed up with this Valenti guy present.
In fact, they go really really slowly and Marty Gras
(14:02):
celebrations were set to kick off that weekend, So Mariel
asked for a quote cooling down period until after Marti Gras,
like please, can we all just put our differences aside
us and like get through Marty Gras and then get
back to the table. But P A n O wouldn't
agree to that cooling off period. They wanted all their
issues to be resolved before the festival, before the big
(14:25):
weekend began, and they wanted the unresolved issues to be
submitted to binding arbitration, which basically meant that if the
two sides couldn't come to an agreement together, there would
be a third party who would decide the issues, decide
the outcome of the issues, and each of the other
sides would be legally bound to honor that decision. And
(14:46):
of course Mariel was not going to have that. Um
I mean, who would this third party be in the
first place. It just seemed like too big of a
risk for the city to take. Yeah, so Mariel kind
of drew the line in the sand there, and the
second strike did in fact begin that Saturday, February, and
Moril ended up having to cancel that first big weekend
of Marty Gross celebrations. That first weekend of parades that
(15:09):
everyone was so looking forward to. He's still at that
point had hoped so that the next week of celebrations
would continue. But they had a lot of things to
work out. Yeah, and the Piano was still slow to negotiate,
even though it was the group that originally wanted to
speed this whole process up. So um Memorial had to
call in the National Guard about one thousand, one hundred
(15:31):
troops and some of the state police to to supplement
the non striking police force, because obviously, you can't even
have a canceled Marty Gras with no police. There's still
gonna be people in New Orleans milling about. You still
need police around. And I think that they canceled time off.
They made him work twelve hour shifts. So it was
a lot to take on for those who weren't part
(15:53):
of the strike. As they were negotiating, Moril had to
start announcing parade cancelations one day at a time, which
was sort of torturous for the city. In fact, in
a New Orleans magazine story, writer Liz Scott refers to it,
I think in a really interesting way. She says, to
the parade loving citizenry, it was like Chinese water torture.
(16:13):
Every one at a time, one falls and thanks God.
Dramatic too, I guess because the police side was trying
to escalate the situation to hopefully resolve it before Marty Gras.
But Valenti and Bruno started going on TV and showing
up on the front pages of the newspapers, and they
did some stuff that really took things too far. Um,
(16:35):
the union bowed to stay off work, quote until doomsday
if necessary. They made it clear that they didn't give
a hoot about Marty Gras. Um. They were looking to
resolve these issues, and they passed out one hundred thousand
leaflets to tourists that some of the big points of
entry to the city up, saying that New Orleans was unsafe.
(16:56):
You know, turned back, don't bother going to Marty Gras
because we're not here to protect you. So now not
only were there negotiations just incidentally preventing Marty grow from
taking place, they were actively going out and discouraging tourists,
discouraging dollars from coming into the city, and actively going
out there and preventing Marty Garraw from happening. Yeah, and
(17:16):
Baruno then took it to the next level for real,
and the heat of the moment, he told reporter that
if the police didn't get their way, they would quote
wreck the city. So nobody likes to hear that from
the guy representing the police group. And he apologized later,
but it was it was really too late, and by
this point public sentiment did a complete one eighty. They
(17:40):
were no longer on the side of the police and
and trying to support their requests. They turned against the
police because everyone was affected by what was going on,
either financially, you know, you have people running hotels and
restaurants and they're expecting all those tourists to come in,
or personally because Marty gross fun and people who live
(18:01):
in New Orleans often work long and hard to get
ready for these parades, planning their costumes and and working
on it. So for all of those people who were
planning on attending, and for celebs. Two celebrities were involved.
Don't forget about that Ron Howard Ron Howard, Yes, he
was apparently inconvenienced by the strike. Ron Howard, Frankie Avalon
(18:23):
the rock group Kiss. All these people were supposed to
be raining over various parades that year, and they didn't
get to come. So yeah, people are understandably not very
happy about what the police is doing at this point,
and so Marty Graw organizers do something that's really interesting.
They decide that they weren't going to take this lying
down anymore. No. It was actually in a really famous
(18:46):
gesture the carnival captains, they literally all got up and
stood behind the mayor as he announced on Tuesday, February
twentie that all remaining Marty Gras parades would be canceled,
the entire thing, the entire celebration. One of the crew
captains said, We're not going to let Marty Gras be
held hostage by the teamsters. It is wrong to use
Marty grass blackmail in this dispute. The same procedure can
(19:10):
be used every year, and we're not going to let
our organizations be puppets in such a plan. So with that,
the police were out of their bargaining chip. Marty Gras
was not going to be used by anyone, and the
mayor and the administration really got the upper hand and
the strike lasted for about sixteen days total, but the
anti strike sentiment remained really high, and once Marty Gras
(19:34):
was over and the police didn't have that leverage anymore.
The whole thing really fizzled out. I mean the city,
the city had the control. Yeah, if there was a winner,
the city certainly turned out to be the winner in
the situation, which I don't know, we're kind of talking
about it before. It was sort of unfortunate because the
police did there what they wanted was valid, had legitimate complaints,
(19:55):
they really did. But then the way that things turned
out once they made Marty Gras part of their plan
for leverage their bargaining chip, as you said, it sort
of all fell apart definitely. And as for Marty Gras itself,
I mean officially canceled. That means it's ruined, right. I mean,
some people estimate that the city lost six million dollars
(20:17):
because of the cancelation. And again this is nineteen nine,
so it's a lot. But the Marty Grass spirit and
celebrations somehow managed to live on, which is really interesting me.
The old line cruise on one hand, Comus Rex Momus proteus.
They didn't parade. They said, if they couldn't pray in
the city, they didn't want to parade at all. But
(20:38):
there were a few others like Endymion that moved their
parades to the suburbs. But also on Fat Tuesday, while
there weren't any official praise in the city, it was
just this gorgeous, warm day, and it turned out that
a lot of locals really did just throw on costumes
and head down to the French Quarter and they partied anyway,
extra hard, apparently extra hard dancing, second lining in the streets,
(21:02):
and it was almost sort of like some people describe
it as an active defiance towards the strikers. Yeah, and
probably just letting loose, cutting some of those tensions that
had been so high in the city for the past
few weeks. And um, incidentally, there were a few other
acts of defiance. Um there's a rumor that in a
voodoo shop on Bourbon Joe Valenti hex dollies were for sale.
(21:26):
Um already stuck full of hat pins so I could
get your revenge, I guess on the team stir. Yeah,
we giggled a little bit, but I don't know if
that's really funny. Actually it's kind of frightening. Maybe not
so funny after all. So because of all the fun
that they had partying in the streets, texting people, um,
and of course the lack of tourists in there, that
(21:48):
was another aspect of it. Some did call it the
best Marty Gras ever. In the Scott article she actually
describes it, and again I really love the way she
says this one of those. She describes it as one
of those arming little weddings with just immediate family and
close friends. So yeah, I mean, it sounds like a
good time, and I can see how it would be
a drag to lose all your money if you were
(22:11):
maybe in the hotel business, but it also does still
sound like a really great party. It does. And as
for whether it was the best Marty Grab or not,
I think maybe a lot of people now would call
the two thousand six Marty Grout the US one of
the best ones ever because that was the one that
happened just a few months after Katrina, and it was
sort of, you know, proof that the city was alive
(22:31):
and kitching. Yeah, resurgence and restoration, and both of these
situations though, seemed to kind of really reflect the enduring spirit,
you know, not to sound hokey, but the enduring spirit
of natives of New Orleans. Definitely Okay, well that's the
end of this Marty Gross story. But if you have
your own Marty Gross story g rated of course, that
(22:52):
you would like to share with us, please feel free
to email us at History Podcast at how stuff works
dot com. You can also look us up on Facebook
and where it Twitter at Myston History. And we also
have an article on Marty Grawl conveniently enough, if you're
looking to do a little bit of light reading before
you get in the car, or board a plane, or
just go outside your door and enjoy the celebrations. It's
(23:13):
called how Marty Gral Works, and you can find it
by searching for Marty Gral on our homepage at www
dot how stuff works dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The
(23:35):
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