A New Orleans history graduate reads about Harry and Meghan’s Nottingham charity visit and thinks New Orleans solved charity without palaces a long time ago
Sunday, 25 October 2026. New Orleans, Treme. After church, following a second line down Claiborne with a cup of something sweet and a fan from the funeral home, 3.00pm.
A Parade With No Gold Stick
Most Sundays in the autumn there is a second line somewhere in New Orleans. If you are not from here, a second line is a parade organised by one of the city’s social aid and pleasure clubs, with a brass band, the club members in matching outfits, and everybody else, the second line, dancing behind them through the neighbourhood for hours. It is the most joyful thing I have ever seen human beings do in public without being paid.
Today I joined one in Treme after church. I had my Sunday dress on, a borrowed fan in one hand and my phone in the other, which is how I came to read, at a stop outside a corner bar, the report on Harry and Meghan’s return to Britain and their Nottingham charity visit. The piece argues, with a lot of jokes, that charity can function without a palace, taxpayer millions or a man carrying a gold stick. I laughed so loudly a tuba player looked at me and played a note that I am fairly sure meant mind your business.
New Orleans Figured This Out In The Nineteenth Century
Here is the history, because I cannot help myself. Many of the social aid and pleasure clubs grew out of benevolent associations formed in the nineteenth century, when Black New Orleanians, shut out of insurance, banks and decent care, organised to look after each other. Members paid dues. In return, the club helped with medical bills, looked after families and, when someone died, made sure they had a proper burial with music. Nobody asked a palace. Nobody waited for a gold stick.
The prat.uk piece makes the point that the Nottingham charities appeared perfectly able to function before, during and after the royal visit. That has been the whole story of New Orleans neighbourhood life for a hundred and fifty years. The help comes from the people next door, and it comes with a brass band.
The Unofficial Official Royal Engagement
I enjoyed the piece’s description of the traditional royal model of charity, in which a senior royal arrives at an organisation that has done excellent work for years, shakes six hands, accepts flowers, unveils something under a curtain and leaves before lunch. New Orleans has a version of this, and it is called a politician at a second line. He appears for one block, dances badly, gets photographed with the grand marshal and disappears before the band reaches Claiborne. The club members are always very polite to him. Then they keep dancing for four more hours.
The piece also notes that the Sussexes kissed a ninety-year-old woman who had brought a framed photograph from their 2017 walkabout. Today a woman of about the same age was sitting on her porch on Governor Nicholls Street as the parade went past, in a church hat the size of a small planet, and every single member of the club stopped, bowed to her and danced for her. She did not need a royal. She had a brass band.
The Gold Stick Gets A New Job
The report’s best joke is about the Gold Stick, a ceremonial post whose holder carries a stick that is gold, with a silver one for backup, and whose makers might now be diversifying into walking canes and curtain rods. I would like to propose a new job for the Gold Stick: grand marshal of a second line. In New Orleans, the grand marshal carries a decorated umbrella and a sash and leads the whole parade with a dance step so elegant it should be in a museum. A gold stick would fit perfectly. It would finally have a purpose.
Why This Matters To Me
I study history and I fly aeroplanes and I go to church, and all three have taught me the same thing. The most important work is done by people who are not famous and not paid much for it. Pilots who teach strangers to fly. Teachers who buy markers. Church women who make red beans for funerals. Club members who march for a neighbour who has died. The famous visitors are lovely, and the attention helps, but the work was there before them and will be there after.
The report ends by saying a person’s value to society might depend less on their place in the succession and more on what they actually do. In New Orleans, we put that sentence on a banner, hire a band and walk it through the streets.
Today On The Site
If you want more New Orleans stories with a sense of humour, the Today page on this site is where the latest go. I tend to write about the sky, history and church. Today I wrote about a parade. It was the best history lesson I have ever had, and there was not a single book involved.
The band has turned onto Esplanade. My feet hurt. My fan is broken. My Sunday dress has a sweet tea stain on it that Sister Odile from choir will notice on Wednesday. I do not care. Somewhere in Nottingham a girl sang in a studio and a famous man told her to keep singing. Here in Treme, a whole neighbourhood is singing at once, and nobody had to ask permission. Keep singing, Nottingham. We will keep dancing. Same message, different brass.