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The work behind New Orleans’ second lines

Shoes collected from another city. A house opened when a door stayed locked. A band listening to a dancer. The neighborhood work that brings a parade into the street.

Things to do near you · GuidesChecked October 29, 202610 min read

Archive · 2019

A brass band at the Revolution social club’s second line, March 2019. David & Karyn / Wikimedia Commons

Inside this guide

In 2011, the Dumaine Street Gang had a parade to make and a locked door in its way. The Tremé Center had not opened when the members needed to dress. In their published club narrative, Byron Hogans and Rene “Mr. Bang Bang” Reynolds recall the solution: change at Benny Ransom’s mother’s house nearby, call the band to meet them there, then come up the street together. The waiting public took the entrance as part of the plan.

A club lives between its parades

A social aid and pleasure club has an annual occasion, a name and a public presentation. It also has a life during the rest of the week. Hogans describes Dumaine’s standing Tuesday meetings continuing through the pandemic, with members sitting apart outdoors. Reynolds remained involved behind the scenes even during a period when he was no longer parading.

Their account also describes a reciprocal practice of hosting stops for other clubs: food, drinks and sometimes help getting children’s divisions into fresh clothes. Other groups return the hospitality. A place on a route can therefore mark a relationship maintained across different organizations and different Sundays.

The words “social,” “aid” and “pleasure” all carry weight here. A parade lets a club show itself to the city; the continuing association gives the event somewhere to come from. When you read the hosting club’s name on a route sheet, begin there. The occasion has people responsible for it, and a history that extends beyond a visitor’s afternoon.

The work in a pair of shoes

Fred Johnson’s Black Men of Labor narrative makes the preparation tangible. He remembers two boxes of parade shoes held in different cities, with the event only days away. Waldo Jeff flew to retrieve the Cincinnati box so the New Orleans shipment could be released. Coordinated dress depended on someone solving a very particular problem.

The clothes carried deliberate meaning, too. Johnson connects the club’s early blue denim and brown overalls to longshoremen’s work clothes and the Bucket Men tradition. He traces the club’s origin to a wish to bring the band out again in homage after Danny Barker’s jazz funeral. Johnson, Gregg Stafford and Benny Jones Sr. created a parade; its first edition was on Labor Day in 1994. After Katrina, the club moved its parade date to October.

Clothing can hold the memory of work, an organizational decision and the practical effort required to bring the group out together. Read it with curiosity. The significance of a color, sash or fan belongs to its particular participants and occasion; the opportunity for a visitor is to notice the care without inventing an explanation for every detail.

A public celebration with a history of care

The older benevolent associations of New Orleans provided concrete services: medical treatment, help for sick members and funeral arrangements. Meetings and social events kept people connected as well. Historian Eric Seiferth’s account for the Historic New Orleans Collection places those organizations within a longer history of Black civic life and advocacy in public space.

The documents make that history specific. In 1875, the Société d’Economie et d’Assistance Mutuelle recorded a decision about formal dress and musical accompaniment for processions. Its French-language minutes used the English words brass band. In 1883, the society extended parading to anniversary occasions. These are documentary anchors within a wider tradition, rather than a single birthday for every second line.

The National Park Service’s jazz history describes the official society members and their hired band, followed by people who joined the procession—the second line. The term now also commonly names the event. The distinction gives a newcomer an orientation: identify the club and musicians organizing the occasion, then understand the followers in relation to them.

Later neighborhood social aid and pleasure clubs belong to another chapter in that history. Community needs and organizations have changed over time. What carries across the different periods is the work of making and maintaining connections, including the right to appear together in the city’s streets.

Listen to the conversation at the door

The beginning of a procession is a useful place to pay attention. In HNOC’s 2021 written interview, saxophonist and composer Douane Waples explains how the music at the “coming out the door” can be shaped around what a participant wants to emerge to. He describes responding to the confidence and energy of the person in front of the band.

That is a conversation made in movement. A listener can follow how a phrase meets a gesture, how the group supports a moment, and how the procession gathers itself to move on. You do not need specialist vocabulary to notice the exchange. Give it time, and leave physical room for the people making it happen.

Waples also speaks about the sustained effort of playing through a parade in heat and humidity, and the challenge of maintaining intensity. His account brings the musicians’ work into focus. The event’s propulsion comes from people who are listening, moving and performing over an extended route.

The music has its own changing history. HNOC’s account traces brass-band sounds that incorporate rhythm and blues, funk, soul and hip-hop alongside earlier influences. Listening for that movement between generations is more rewarding than expecting a single preserved style. A tradition can be recognizable while its musicians continue to make choices about the sound.

A club parade, a wedding, a funeral

Know what occasion you have encountered. A public club anniversary parade, a wedding procession and a jazz funeral can all involve a brass band and followers, while asking different things of the people around them.

In a 2006 National Endowment for the Arts interview, Tremé Brass Band’s Benny Jones Sr. describes the traditional funeral approach he follows: hymns and dirges on the way toward burial, with more up-tempo music afterward. He distinguishes that work from the dance-oriented music of an annual club parade, and also acknowledges younger musicians’ different approaches. His account is a musician’s explanation of a tradition, with room for variation among actual funerals.

New Orleans’ official tourism guide describes a wedding second line as part of a couple’s celebration, often connecting the ceremony and reception. A wedding party’s procession has its own hosts and guests. A funeral has mourners. Read the occasion before deciding how to participate or where to place a camera.

For a visitor seeking a public neighborhood parade, a dated club listing is the useful starting point. It identifies an event intended to take its place in the annual calendar, rather than leaving you to infer an invitation from the sound of a band.

Who gets to keep the picture?

Sylvester Francis built the Backstreet Cultural Museum through a relationship with the people he photographed. The museum’s history describes him giving subjects copies of their pictures, displaying photographs and memorabilia in his Tremé garage in 1988, then receiving objects from people who knew his work. Chief Victor Harris and social aid and pleasure club members were among those who contributed to the growing collection.

The exchange is worth thinking about when a phone comes out on the street. A photograph can be a personal souvenir, a public record or something a family and community want to keep. The people in it have their own relationship to the occasion. Ask before making a close portrait, respect a refusal and avoid interrupting a participant’s movement for a better frame.

Care continues away from the route

The work of supporting New Orleans culture bearers takes different organizational forms. Feed the Second Line, a separate nonprofit, describes beginning food deliveries to elders in 2020 while creating paid delivery work for younger culture bearers. Its subsequent work includes disaster preparation, material support and opportunities for the next generation. Its own history is an account of that organization, alongside the clubs and other traditions it serves.

There is a public-policy dimension too. In August 2026, the City of New Orleans announced a one-time $125,000 state appropriation supporting traditional culture bearers, including social aid and pleasure clubs and Black Masking Indian traditions. A particular grant is one part of the picture; it does not describe the full cost of sustaining a club, musician or procession.

For a reader, these examples make a useful connection between the event and the conditions that allow it to continue. A parade has visible work—playing, dressing, dancing—and continuing work around people’s needs, relationships and opportunities. Learning the name of an organization or artist gives you a way to follow that work after the streets have emptied.

Read the route as a sequence of places

WWOZ’s Takin’ It to the Streets is a practical entry point for the current season. Open the individual event listing as well as the season schedule. Look for the club name, date, start location, route turns, stops and disband point. The window gives the event’s scheduled span; it does not assign an arrival time to every stop.

For example, the announced We Are One parade on November 1, 2026 has a 12:30–4:30 p.m. window, starting and disbanding at Verret’s Lounge & Bar, 1738 Washington Avenue. Its listing names stops including the Marsh Hotel and Big Man’s Lounge. Read the directions between those places and check for updates near the date.

Plan your own participation around the actual route and what you can comfortably manage. A start point is useful if you want to see the procession gather; a listed stop gives another orientation point. Give yourself a way to leave without needing the parade to be at a particular corner at an invented time. Transportation and accessibility questions need information for the specific journey you choose.

The calendar includes exceptions to a simple Sunday pattern. Follow dated listings, and check the organizing club’s updates when available. The club names and places are the beginning of a map you can keep learning, not merely a set of directions to complete once.

Follow with attention

Come to a public club parade as a guest with an interest in the people making it. Watch how the procession moves, leave space around the band and club members, and follow directions given by organizers and public officials. If you are uncertain about where to stand or how to join, ask someone responsible for the event rather than using another visitor’s confidence as your guide.

Look beyond the most photogenic moment. A person coordinating a departure, a host at a stop, a musician adjusting to a dancer and a family following a name they know are all part of the occasion. You may understand more by staying with one exchange than by collecting many images.

The practical habits are modest: check the date, know the route, make your own travel plan and treat people’s attention as something they choose to share. The result can be an encounter that stays with you because you learned whose celebration it was—and something about the work that made it possible.