An examination of the musical, religious, and political landscape of black New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina, this revised edition looks at how these factors play out in a new millennium of global apartheid. Richard Brent Turner explores the history and contemporary significance of second linesthe group of dancers who follow the first procession of church and club members, brass bands, and grand marshals in black New Orleans's jazz street parades. Here music and religion interplay, and Turner's study reveals how these identities and traditions from Haiti and West and Central Africa are reinterpreted. He also describes how second line participants create their own social space and become proficient in the arts of political disguise, resistance, and performance.

Richard Brent Turner is Professor of Religious Studies and African American Studies at the University of Iowa. He is author of Islam in the African-American Experience (IUP, 2003). In the late 1990s, Turner lived in New Orleans while teaching at Xavier University.

PrefaceIntroduction to the Second EditionSelected Bibliography for the Second Edition

Introduction: Follow the Second Line1. The Haiti-New Orleans Vodou Connection: Zora Neale Hurston as Initiate Observer2. Mardi Gras Indians and Second Lines, Sequin Artists and Rara Bands: Street Festivals and Performances in New Orleans and Haiti

Interlude: The Healing Arts of African Diasporic Religion

3. In Rhythm with the Spirit: New Orleans Jazz Funerals and the African DiasporaEpilogue. A Jazz Funeral for "A City That Care Forgot": The New Orleans Diaspora after Hurricane Katrina

NotesBibliographyIndex