Question 1

What does “social aid and pleasure club” mean?

Accepted Answer

a Black New Orleans neighborhood club that gives mutual aid and stages an annual second-line parade

Question 2

Where does “social aid and pleasure club” come from?

Accepted Answer

The line runs from the benevolent societies. The Perseverance Benevolent and Mutual Aid Association was established in 1783, and the Société d'Economie et d'Assistance Mutuelle was founded in 1836 by French-speaking Afro-Creoles. After the Civil War membership surged, and by the early twentieth century there were more than two hundred Black societies, with about half the city's Black population in at least one. In 1875 the Economie required members to parade in formal black and white attire with music at special events and funerals, and by 1883 it held annual anniversary parades with brass bands, the ancestor of the modern second line. By the mid-twentieth century the neighborhood-based social aid and pleasure clubs had shifted from sick and death benefits to community charity and parading. Note that the exact phrase \"social aid and pleasure club\" belongs to the later period; the date here marks the tradition it descends from.