A bushy mustache, a bass drum, a hat cocked to the side and a sharp suit.
Anybody who has spent time in New Orleans could recognize that description as “Uncle” Lionel Batiste, a man of diminutive stature but enormous reputation and a walking symbol of the historic black neighborhood Tremé.
Though Tremé lost Uncle Lionel this summer, his spirit lives on in the streets and sidewalks of the suburb his image still represents. This week marks the neighborhood’s 200th birthday.
Founded in 1812, Tremé grew from a meeting place for slaves and free men alike to the nation’s first black neighborhood to a hotbed of creativity, a closely knit community and the oldest black suburb in the country. Along the way, the neighborhood has served as the birthplace of jazz and the setting for the critically acclaimed HBO drama series that bears its name.
President of the New Orleans Multicultural Tourism Network Toni Rice said she wants to show the world the history beyond the Emmy-nominated drama and believes the roots of Louisiana culture rest beneath the neighborhood’s aging foundations.
“Every iconic thing that both locals and visitors alike, everything they love about New Orleans, sprang up from Tremé,” Rice said.
And the vibrant suburb seems to call for a vibrant celebration. Several New Orleans organizations have banded together to celebrate the bicentennial of this emblematic neighborhood in true Big Easy fashion — a five-day party, complete with local food, live music, club crawls and hundreds of people making noise in the streets.
“For this city, promoting festivals comes naturally. It’s a no-brainer,” Rice said. “So when we started looking at the Tremé Bicentennial and how to appropriately celebrate that, we knew absolutely there had to be a festival.”
The five-day fête kicked off with a candlelight block party on Wednesday night, but some of the most involving events are yet to come. These include a “brass band blowout” featuring Grammy-winning Rebirth Brass Band, a club crawl guided by New Orleans radio DJ Kelder Summers for a sampling of the best live music in the area and the first-ever united Tremé Second Line.
The celebration will culminate Saturday morning in Armstrong Park with one giant bash, combining the Tremé 200 Bicentennial Celebration with the 25th Annual Mahalia Jackson Rejoicin’ in the Park Festival. Rev. Lois DeJean, head of Rejoicin’ in the Park, said this marriage of culture and gospel is the perfect way to make the event unforgettable.
“We are doing it New Orleans style. You can have it your way,” DeJean said. “Everybody you know, everybody you don’t know, tell everybody to come out and experience a day you will not believe.”
The bicentennial draws to a close with a jazz Mass and united Second Line on Sunday morning at St. Augustine Church, the oldest African-American Catholic parish in the country founded by free people of color in 1841.
“Can you imagine what God is going to be doing?” DeJean said. “He’s going to be having a good time.”
While digging into the culture to put together these events, Rice and her team discovered that Tremé lends its rich fabric to more than just a festival.
“It seemed the neighborhood, the ancestors, they demanded something deeper,” Rice said. “It became clear that it was a movement and that we’re on a mission to jump into the soul of the community and interpret its heart.”
With that in mind, organizers of Tremé 200 have cast the current local scene onto the backdrop of a colorful history. Perseverance Hall will play host throughout the festival to seminars and panels on Tremé’s story, from slavery to the 21st century.
“We tried to design a program that we thought would tell the whole story of Tremé, top to bottom, left to right, not just the parts of it that people are familiar with,” Rice told attendees of the bicentennial’s opening news conference on Tuesday in front of Perseverance Hall.
A buzz of pride and anticipation seems to fill the 200-year-old streets of Tremé and the historic Armstrong Park, from Congo Square to Esplanade to Lemann Park, from the Mardi Gras beads on the powerlines to the water lines on the cement. The people of Tremé are ready to party.
“When we walk around the community, we can see the pride. Residents, they prepare, they get ready, they know company’s coming,” Rice said, beaming. “I can tell you, those Uncle Lionel banners are never coming down.”
For more information and a full schedule of events, visit treme2012.com.
