Second lines return to New Orleans; dancers and performers resume Sunday tradition
Sunday marked the city's first permitted second line since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sunday marked the city's first permitted second line since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sunday marked the city's first permitted second line since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In New Orleans, the road to recovery isn't just for driving.
Thousands of people filled the streets Sunday afternoon for the first city-permitted second line since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Dancers, performers and onlookers shuffled from Lasalle Street to Jackson Avenue, marking more than a month since Mayor LaToya Cantrell eased virus-related restrictions on dancing and parades.
"During the pandemic, we lost a lot of our culture — whether people want to admit it or not," second-liner Alexis Lee said. "This is definitely part of our culture that a lot of people needed to see and needed to have."
Second lining boasts a deep history in New Orleans. In the 19th century, the city's Black neighborhood organizations would offer loans, insurance and burial services to freed slaves, and they used second lines to advertise. Second lines have also become fixtures at the city's funerals.
The Perfect Gentlemen Social Club organized Sunday's second line, as they have on most Father's Days for 30 years. Its members paid particular tribute to fathers who have died of COVID.
"A lot of members, they made it back, but some passed on," club member Travis Lyons said. "We're going to celebrate their legacy."
"Not a day goes by that we don't think about them," said Dion Walker, whose father died of the virus a year ago Sunday. "We will not let their feelings or their memories go in vain. We will forever hold them in their hearts."
New Orleans averages some 800 second lines in the average year, including a handful planned for the coming weeks.