Mardi Gras is the annual celebration in Mobile, Alabama. It is the oldest official Carnival celebration in the United States, started by Frenchman Nicholas Langlois in 1703 when Mobile was the capital of Louisiana. Although today New Orleans is much more widely known for all the current traditions such as parades, the floats and throws were first created in Mobile.
Mobile was the first capital of French Louisiana in 1702, and Mardi Gras began as a French Catholic tradition. Mardi Gras has now evolved into a mainstream multi-week celebration across the spectrum of cultures, becoming school holidays for the final Monday and Tuesday, regardless of religious affiliation.
Mobile has traditions of exclusive societies, with formal masked balls and elegant costumes, the celebration has evolved over the past three centuries to become typified by public parades where members of societies wear masks on floats or horseback, tossing gifts, known as throws to the general public. Throws include necklaces of plastic beads, doubloon coins, decorated plastic cups, candy, Moonpies, stuffed animals, and small toys, footballs, frisbees, or whistles.
The masked balls or dances, where non-masked men wear white tie and tails and the women wear full length evening gowns, are oriented to adults, with some mystic societies
Mobile Mardi Gras involves many various mystic societies, some having begun in 1704, or ending with the Civil War. Joseph Stillwell Cain, Jr., referred by locals as Joe Cain, October 10, 1832 – April 17, 1904, is credited with initiating the modern way of observing Mardi Gras and its celebrations in Mobile, Alabama, following the Civil War.
In 1868, while Mobile was still under Union occupation, Joe Cain paraded through the streets of Mobile, dressed in improvised costume as a fictional "Chickasaw" chief named Slacabamorinico. The choice was an attempt to insult to U.S. Army forces in that it was believed by some that the Chickasaw tribe had never been defeated in war.
Joe was joined at some point by six other Confederate veterans, parading in a decorated coal wagon, playing drums and horns, and the group became the "L. C. Minstrel Band", now commonly referred to as the "Lost Cause Minstrels" of Mobile.
The Sunday before Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras Day, Joe Cain Day is celebrated as part of the scheduled Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile, with its center being the Joe Cain Procession, never called a parade. This has been called “The People’s Parade” because it is performed by citizens without being run by a specific Mardi Gras krewe. Originally, anybody who showed up at the parade start on Sunday morning could join in with whatever makeshift float they could cobble together. Eventually, the sheer size and the city's desire to have all the Carnival parades conform to the same set of rules forced the organizers to limit the participants to a preset limit. The parade is preceded with the visit of the “Cain's Merry Widows” to the gravesite of their “departed husband”
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