{"id":2358267,"date":"2026-04-04T11:01:53","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T11:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2358267"},"modified":"2026-04-04T11:01:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T11:01:53","slug":"pigeon-town-steppers-bring-a-pastel-party-to-nola-easter-entertainment-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/pigeon-town-steppers-bring-a-pastel-party-to-nola-easter-entertainment-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Pigeon Town Steppers bring a pastel party to NOLA Easter | Entertainment\/Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Residents in the 17th Ward \u201cway Uptown\u201d \u2014 along with plenty of visitors \u2014 greet Easter Sunday with a sense of anticipation. Not for the Easter bunny, but for something far more New Orleans: the Pigeon Town Steppers and their annual second-line parade.<\/p>\n

Each year, the Steppers transform their neighborhood streets into a display of style, pride and pageantry.<\/p>\n

Around 1 p.m., the door swings open at a familiar spot, and the crowd squeezes together with everyone trying to get the best view.<\/p>\n

The horns begin to blare through the air as the first Stepper bursts on the scene, prancing and waving two large, fluffy feather fans. Cheers rise. Heads turn. Phones go up. The group’s \u201cpretty colors\u201d for the year are revealed as he moves to the rhythm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Original Men Pigeon Town Steppers & Ladies Pigeon Town Steppers Social Aid & Pleasure Club Easter Second line Sunday, March 31, 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n BY DAVID GRUNFELD | DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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One by one, more members follow, each receiving their own round of applause.<\/p>\n

Then Joseph \u201cRollin Joe\u201d Henry makes his appearance.<\/p>\n

His decorated wheelchair rolls forward, then spins, the front wheels lifting briefly off the ground as the crowd roars. He turns, dips and rolls with the music, commanding the moment as much as any dancer on foot.<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t no feeling like when you come out that door,\u201d Henry wrote in a 2020 essay for the Historic New Orleans Collection<\/a>. \u201cEverybody out there waiting to see you, waiting to see your colors, the pretty colors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt still gives me butterflies every year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Steppers\u2019 outfits are symbols of pride and investment. The members design their own gators \u2014 imported from Mori, Italy \u2014 with each pair costing about $1,400. The two-toned shoes match their gator belts and the bands wrapped around their hats. Their suits are tailor-made too. This year, even the fabric came from Mori.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Original Men Pigeon Town Steppers and the Lady Pigeon Town Steppers headed out on Sunday, April 5, 2015 for their annual Easter second-line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune<\/span>
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Henry and his younger brother, Sylvester, were among the 20 founders of the club in 1994, serving as president and vice president. After two years of going \u201crenegade\u201d without permits or a charter, they worked with a member of the Lady Buck Jumpers to make the parade official.<\/p>\n

The group chose to parade on Easter because other Sundays were taken. Now 32 years later, Henry is still president and the last surviving founder. Sylvester died in February 2025.<\/p>\n

The second-line parade route changes, but always goes through Pigeon Town, Gert Town and Hollygrove. It ends at the Merry-Go-Round Hall, home of the Young & True Friends Benevolent Association, a precursor to the Steppers.<\/p>\n

Henry\u2019s grandmother, Edna Henry, belonged to the Young & True Friends<\/a>, founded in 1881. The 500-member association once was one of the largest in the city. It stopped parading in 1994.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Henry was asked to take over the Young & True Friends charter, but he couldn\u2019t at the time. \u201cIt would have been nice to keep it going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Instead, he started the Pigeon Town Steppers Social Aid & Pleasure Club.<\/p>\n

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The Original Men Pigeon Town Steppers and the Lady Pigeon Town Steppers headed out on Sunday, April 5, 2015 for their annual Easter second-line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune<\/span>
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They continue the second-line tradition to honor those who came before them, Henry said. \u201cWe want to keep fighting to keep it going. Sometimes you can\u2019t let it go because of the love for it. I don\u2019t ever want to give it up. I want to pass it down to the younger generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

At age 12, Henry was riding his bike two blocks from his grandmother\u2019s house when a stray bullet hit him. He has been in a wheelchair ever since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know about being paralyzed,\u201d Henry recalled. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy. I didn\u2019t have a lot of things that (disabled people) have now. I\u2019ve always been an athletic person. I didn\u2019t want to be left out. That has always been my mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite this life-changing injury, Henry refused to sit on the sidelines. He set out to do everything his friends did, and he still does today. When he\u2019s not spinning himself through the second-line crowd, he takes a push from his friend Jamal Hall.<\/p>\n

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One Mind Brass Band with Lady Pigeon Town Steppers and Bad Boyz Social Aid & Pleasure Club parade throughout the Fair Grounds at Jazz Fest on Thursday, April 24, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Photo by Maddie Spinner \/ Gambit<\/span>
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Instead of competing with other clubs, the Steppers work to improve every year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep the pastel colors because it is Easter,\u201d Henry said. \u201cOur goal is not to disappoint our fans. We put on a show. It\u2019s what they want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

And this Easter Sunday, as the colors dance and the brass band marches down the street, the fans will experience another spectacular moment.<\/p>\n

Tammy C. Barney can be reached at tlcbarney@gmail.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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New Orleans must be the world capital of parades. After Mardi Gras, the city barely has a ch\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Residents in the 17th Ward \u201cway Uptown\u201d \u2014 along with plenty of visitors \u2014 greet Easter Sunday with a sense of anticipation. Not for the Easter bunny, but for something far more New Orleans: the Pigeon Town Steppers and their annual second-line parade. Each year, the Steppers transform their neighborhood streets into a display of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2358268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2358267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Pigeon-Town-Steppers-bring-a-pastel-party-to-NOLA-Easter.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2358267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2358269,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358267\/revisions\/2358269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2358268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2358267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2358267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2358267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}