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- <text id=91TT2897>
- <title>
- Dec. 30, 1991: American Notes:New Orleans
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Dec. 30, 1991 The Search For Mary
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 25
- American Notes
- NEW ORLEANS
- Mardi Gras Mess
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Barely a month after blacks and whites in New Orleans banded
- together to defeat former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in the
- Louisiana Governor's race, the city's newfound unity has been
- shattered by a controversial antidiscrimination law. For more
- than a century, many of the elite Mardi Gras krewes, which
- organize colorful carnival balls and parades, have been white,
- all-male organizations. But in a unanimous decision last week,
- the city council ruled that any krewe that bars blacks, Jews or
- women could not only lose its parade permit but also face
- criminal penalties.
- </p>
- <p> The law, proposed by city councilor Dorothy Mae Taylor,
- who is black, will not affect Mardi Gras until 1993, leaving
- the council committees time to review, and possibly revise, the
- penalties. The legislation "could kill Mardi Gras," warns Beau
- Bassich, a member of the Mardi Gras Coordinating Committee. Says
- Loyola professor Edward Renwick: "To bring up such a divisive
- issue so shortly after this election seems to blow the
- coalition asunder. We're right back to where we started. Taylor
- is the Grinch who stole Mardi Gras."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-