Roger MacBride has been a part of the local Mardi Gras community since the very beginning, and the thick gray clouds that greeted the annual dawn march down Summit Street this Fat Tuesday morning failed to deter the Kansas City sculptor.
“This is what gets me through the winter,” MacBride said with a grin. “We have King cakes, we're dressed in our finest, and everybody is marching strong.”
MacBride says the hardcore krewes, as the groups who organize these events during Carnival season are known, rise before dawn to march. And they never waver, even when the weather looks grim. Later Tuesday evening, they'll gather at P.R.'s Place, on Washington Street, and march to the Historic 18th & Vine district.
“Rain, sleet, or snow — I have marched in anything and everything,” MacBride said. “All the true devotees will always be here. It's always wonderful.”
This local Fat Tuesday tradition has kept Kansas City partiers marching through the winter months for the past 28 years.
“The truest devotees come together and we welcome being together as this just beautiful community,” MacBride said. “We come together to welcome the morning with all of our neighbors and send out as much love to everybody.”
Musician and marcher Alison Hawkins, dressed in black and white checkerboard pants and a bright yellow jacket, called it their favorite day of the year.
“It's a protest of bad attitudes,” Hawkins said. “It's a reclamation of our joy and, in a time of darkness and sorrow, it's our moment to connect with our community.”
Seeds of a tradition
As MacBride remembered it, the Kansas City Mardi Gras celebration started when painter and sculptor David Ford set a card table in front of his restaurant, the now closed YJ's Snack Bar, at 18th and Wyandotte streets.
There was a bottle of whiskey, some Mardi Gras beads, and someone produced a king cake, MacBride said. Ernie Locke, from the garage rock band Sin City Disciples, cooked up a feast on a barbecue grill and jazz saxophonist Mark Sutherland played a tune.
MacBride said the next year they raised the bar with mud wrestling in the back of a pickup truck, and he and local sculptor Stretch built a big foam King Neptune float.
“By the third year, in the middle of an insane snowstorm, there were probably 200 people marching,” MacBride said. “We marched from 18th Street all the way to the Mutual Musicians Foundation.”
The traditional Mardi Gras colors — purple, green and gold — are symbolic: Gold represents power, green is associated with faith, and purple stands for justice.
The colors are common among revelers on Tuesday morning.
Clay Jarratt, in a purple robe, crown of plastic grapes, and clutching a gold chalice, was dressed as modern-day Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and orgies.
"This is just a very fun day to be out with friends, and march the streets, and have a good time singing and dancing,” Jarratt said with a wink.
Selena Jabara was decked out in pink, purple and blue flowers. She says the event helps build community.
“With everything that's going on right now,” Jabara said, “it's a way to kind of release all that negativity and be with people that just are all about love.”
Most people marched, walked or danced their way along the parade route. But jazz singer Erin Keller, festooned with bright flowers and feathers, got a special ride in the back of a Subaru.
Keller has been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and was too weak to walk, so her friends found a way for her to join in.
“It's beautiful and expressive and community, and people who support each other and get dressed up for no good reason,” Keller said. “Just have fun and celebrate humanity, celebrate life, celebrate music, celebrate the good things that we have in this world.”
Fat Tuesday’s evening parade starts at 8 p.m. at P.R.'s Place, 1741 Washington St., Kansas City, Missouri 64108, and ends in Kansas City’s Historic 18th & Vine jazz district.
