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[CHAPTER 41]
[Page 1]
Carnival Groups and Social, Aid, and Pleasure Clubs.
Negro social and benevolent organizations have continued through the ante bellum and Reconstruction periods well into the present day. Many of these older clubs and societies were largely composed of the members of the old free colored class or their descendants who often drew sharp distinctions between themselves and the children of freedmen. Even sharper distinctions were drawn between mulattoes and dark or black Negroes.
In the old Francs-Amis Hall on North Robertson Street, where the Francs-Amis held their balls, no very dark or black Negro was permitted to enter. Only “the best of the colored people used to go to dances at that hall” declares an old-timer, who lives just around the corner from the place where mulatto people of downtown New Orleans used to congregate. Most of those who attended dances in this old structure were of that class of mixed-bloods known in Creole circles as “passe pour blancs”--now shortened simply to “passe blanc.”
The Gens-Amis, another colored Creole organization, was likewise placed in this group of mixed-bloods whom darker Negroes refer to as being “color-struck” or afflicted with “yellow fever.” The Autocrats Club and the Iroquois Club were also a sort of “No Man‟s Land” to dark-skinned or black Negroes during this early period. Another organization founded by the free colored group was the benevolent society called Des Artisans, whose history dates back to 1844. It was founded by men whose occupations
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