Second line

What it is

A second line is a style of street parade, not a single yearly date. A club applies for the permit and hires a brass band; together they form the main line, sometimes called the first line. Anyone else who joins in is the second line. Following the band is the point, and people do it by walking, strutting and dancing. Dancers often carry parasols or handkerchiefs, and this free-form movement has its own name, second-lining. Behind the band a snare drummer improvises around the marching beat, and those rhythms can push the dancers or the band in new directions.

Origins and history

The roots lie in West African circle dances, brought to Louisiana by enslaved Africans. In New Orleans those ring dances became part of processions and funerals. Scholars disagree about how the ring became a line: some describe children drumming while adults danced until the ring opened out, others point to steps performed in Congo Square on Sundays, dances the city banned for a time. African ritual dance met European military marching bands, and the two strands came together in the parades that surrounded jazz funerals. Free and enslaved Black residents formed clubs that offered loans, insurance and burial help, and their parades honoured members who had died. Historians trace this club life back to the years of enslavement.

How a parade runs

During the long season, which pauses for holidays and the hottest weeks of summer, parades are held most Sundays. A club's chosen date is a yearly fixture. Longer routes include stops, often at bars, where refreshments are waiting for members and anyone following can buy a drink. Vendors sell soft drinks, beer and street food along the way. Most parades go off peacefully. Some have been marred by shootings, among them a Mother's Day attack in 2013 that wounded nineteen people, and two incidents in the St. Roch neighbourhood in November 2024, forty-five minutes apart, in which two people died and eleven were hurt.

Drumming and dance

Second line drumming is its own craft. A snare player usually walks behind the brass band and answers the marching beat with improvised patterns that cross the main rhythm. Those figures entered early jazz drumming and the rhythm and blues played in New Orleans in the 1950s. Bands such as the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the Rebirth Brass Band keep the older feel, and jazz drummers including Billy Higgins and Idris Muhammad carried the patterns into modern jazz. For dancers the style is loose and personal: stride, dip, spin, wave a cloth and stay close to the horns.

Today and change

Parades have run since the late 1800s, and the clubs that organise them are still busy. The Young Men Olympian Junior Benevolent Association, which dates from 1884, is the oldest group still parading on a regular schedule. After Hurricane Katrina the clubs restored their dates as soon as residents were allowed back, and the Black Men of Labor held the first club parade of that autumn, in October 2005. Newcomers have taken up the tradition too, and routes now circulate online, drawing visitors who come to follow along. The style has also travelled: parading groups play it in other American cities, and festivals borrow it.

How Second line is kept

A club sets a date and takes out the parade permit. Its members make up the main line with the brass band, and the band plays as they move through the streets. Behind them, anyone may join. People dance in their own way, some with parasols or handkerchiefs. Long routes stop at bars and other points where refreshments have been arranged, and vendors sell drinks and street food nearby. If the club is remembering members who have died, the band may begin with one solemn selection. Parades run most Sundays in season and often last for hours.

When and where

The season covers most of the year, with breaks for holidays such as Mardi Gras and for the hottest weeks of summer. In that stretch, second lines are held most Sundays, and each club keeps to its own chosen date. Parades also happen at other times when a family or group hires a band.

The tradition belongs to New Orleans, Louisiana. It is strongest in the historic Black neighbourhoods, especially Tremé and Central City. Parades also appear in the Seventh Ward, Uptown, Marigny, the Ninth Ward and Mid-City, and at least now and then in most of the city's older districts. Beyond Louisiana, bands and parade groups in other American cities keep a version going.

What Second line means

For the clubs, a parade is both a party and a duty. The clubs grew out of mutual aid, and marching together declares that members look after one another in sickness and in death. When a member dies, the band's slow music gives way to a joyful procession, a way of celebrating a spirit returning to the ancestors and to God. Dancers take a freedom in the street that their ancestors were once denied.

Questions people ask about Second line

See also

HalloweenAn annual observance on 31 October marking the eve of All Saints' Day, rooted in Christian tradition and Celtic heritageHanukkahAn eight-day Jewish festival marking the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the miracle of a single day'Day of the DeadA Mexican remembrance of deceased family and friends with altars, marigolds and feastsPapel picadoA Mexican folk art of cutting intricate designs into tissue paper for festive and spiritual displays.

Good reading and sources

• Second line (parades) on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.