Carnival Memphis facts for kids
Carnival Memphis (once called the Memphis Cotton Carnival) is a fun series of parties and festivals held every year since 1931 in Memphis, Tennessee. It's organized by the Carnival Memphis Association and its special groups called krewes, similar to those at Mardi Gras. These events happen in June. Carnival Memphis celebrates different parts of Memphis and its businesses. Each year, a King, Queen, and Royal Court are chosen in secret to lead the festivities.
Contents
The Royal Court
The Royal Court includes young women from Memphis, usually around 19 years old, who have finished their first year of college. They have escorts who join them. Young women on the Court who are not from Memphis are called "Ladies of the Realm." Some members of the Court have special titles, like the "King's Princess" or "Queen's Princess." There are also princesses who represent different social clubs in Memphis. Their male escorts often have similar titles, like "Prince of the University Club."
The Queen is a young woman a few years older than the princesses, usually having finished two or three years of college. The King is traditionally much older than the Court. He is an important leader from the main business or industry being celebrated that year.
Carnival Memphis usually starts the Friday after Memorial Day and lasts about a week. It begins with the Crown & Sceptre Ball and ends with the Grand Carnival Ball. During this time, the main krewes of Carnival also host their own parties and events for their own King, Queen, and Court, and for everyone celebrating Carnival Memphis.
How Carnival Memphis Works
The Carnival Memphis Association organizes, plans, and promotes the King, Queen, and Royal Court. They also manage many of the events during Carnival week.
However, the Grand Krewes (which used to be secret societies) also hold their own parties throughout the year. They choose their own royalty, manage their own money, and have their own rules for who can join. Many of these groups have names inspired by Ancient Egypt. This tradition started with the Mystic Memphi krewe because Memphis, Tennessee, is a sister city to ancient Memphis, Egypt.
There are twelve Grand Krewes that Carnival Memphis officially recognizes:
- Mystic Society of the Memphi
- Osiris
- Sphinx
- RaMet
- Ennead
- Phoenix
- Aani
- Ptolemy
- Kemet Jubilee
- Ptah
- Luxor
- Queen Bees
The Secret Order of the Boll Weevils is a support group for Carnival but is not a Grand Krewe. The krewes of Memphi, Osiris, RaMet, and Sphinx are "old-line" Grand Krewes. They all started in the 1930s as the first secret societies of the Memphis Cotton Carnival. Memphi believes its history goes back to the 1870s when it first promoted Memphis Mardi Gras.
Joining older krewes often has more steps and costs more money than joining newer krewes. Memphi and Osiris are mostly for men, with a few exceptions. Memphi allows their past queens to become members after their reign, believing "once a Queen, always a Queen!"
Each Grand Krewe has its own leaders, often called "General Chairman" or "Chairman." The King and Queen of Carnival Memphis are kept secret until an announcement, usually in early February. Some of the older krewes keep their royalty a secret for most or all of Carnival. For example, the King of Memphi is not announced to his own krewe members until Wednesday night of Carnival Week. The King of Osiris is announced on the last day of Carnival Week.
History of Carnival Memphis
Early Mardi Gras Celebrations
In the 1870s, Memphis was trying to improve its economy after the Civil War and Reconstruction. In 1872, the city celebrated Mardi Gras, just before the Christian season of Lent, similar to celebrations in New Orleans, Louisiana. This idea came from local businessmen like David P. Hadden and Colton Greene. They wanted to help the city's businesses. The celebration became very popular, even competing with New Orleans.
Colton Greene, known for starting Memphis Mardi Gras, also founded the Mystic Society of Memphi. This group helped pay for and organize the social events. Greene and others convinced train companies to lower ticket prices, hired artists, and attracted large crowds for the parades. Over the years, more secret societies, or "krewe" systems, formed. They helped plan the big parades and fancy parties.
The carnival featured colorful costumes inspired by ancient cultures like Greece, Rome, and Egypt. Because of Memphis's Egyptian-sounding name, artists used Egyptian images in floats and invitations to give the party a mystical feel. The festival even had its own made-up origin story. Artist Carl Gutherz created detailed invitations and sketches of floats that appeared in national magazines, helping the Memphis Mardi Gras become a success. It's estimated that 20,000 people attended the first Memphis Mardi Gras in a city of just over 40,000.
Unfortunately, the celebration of Memphis Mardi Gras declined due to a massive Yellow Fever outbreak and the city's struggles in the 1880s. By the early 1900s, the party was over. However, its spirit lived on and was revived during the Great Depression. Mardi Gras was reborn in 1931 as the Cotton Carnival. This new celebration became one of the biggest parties in the South and remains an important event in Memphis today.
The Memphis Cotton Carnival Era
In the early 1900s, many influential people in Memphis wanted to create a citywide event like the old Carnival and bring back the Mystic Memphi. In the early 1930s, the Memphi krewe and the Memphis Cotton Carnival Association were formed. Their goal was to bring excitement back to Memphis and its people.
Instead of following the Lenten calendar like Mardi Gras, this new festival would promote cotton, which was Memphis's most important product at the time. During the Great Depression, many people were jobless, and cotton was selling for very little money. The region's success depended on cotton, so something had to be done to increase its use.
A. Arthur Halle and other businessmen met with Herbert Jennings, a theater manager. Jennings suggested promoting cotton goods in his theater and encouraging stores to display cotton clothing. Halle liked the idea and imagined a bigger citywide event. He talked to Everett R. Cook, who was the President of the Memphis Cotton Exchange. Their ideas quickly grew into a plan for a grand celebration with a King, Queen, and Royal Court. The goal was to encourage people to buy and wear more cotton products, which would help sales and the economy. It worked, and people started buying more cotton items, from socks to fancy dresses.
Everett R. Cook explained his vision: "Carnival is to promote business for everybody and should not be used by any one group. It is for all of the stores and all of the people, for all kinds of professions and businesses, for the city as a whole."
The Memphis Cotton Carnival became very popular in the mid-to-late 1900s. It stretched for several weeks in May and June and grew much larger than originally planned. The Memphis Cotton Carnival Association became a strong organizing body. Along with the krewes, it created a festival that could only be compared to New Orleans' Mardi Gras.
While street parades in downtown Memphis and parties at elite social clubs continued, the event also added new entertainment. It became known as the "South's Greatest Party." The Carnival and its krewes kept traditional aspects but also featured famous musicians like Elvis Presley, Waylon Jennings, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Guests came from all over the United States and the world. It truly became the city's most important event, enjoyed by people from all walks of life in Memphis and the Mid-South.
One of its most exciting events was the Arrival of the Royal Barge. The King, Queen, Royal Court, and others would arrive on a beautifully decorated barge on the Mississippi River, docking in downtown Memphis. With amazing lights and fireworks, it was a spectacular sight. The whole city would gather along the Mississippi riverbanks to watch the Royal Barge Landing, walk along the Carnival midway, and see the parade. National news covered the event, and a "Maid of Cotton" was even crowned to travel the world promoting cotton fashion.
Changes Over Time
After the tragic events surrounding Martin Luther King Jr.'s death, Memphis changed in many ways. As businesses and people moved away from the city center, the public events of the Cotton Carnival became less frequent. Parades and the Royal Barge arrival slowly stopped. Other festivals, like the Memphis in May International Festival and its Beale Street Music Festival, started to become more popular.
Over the years, Carnival's popularity faded as cotton became less important to the area. The national press lost interest, and the Maid of Cotton Pageant moved to Dallas, Texas. In the 1980s, the Cotton Carnival's name changed to the Great River Carnival, and then again to Carnival Memphis. This was because the community and economy had grown and were no longer just about cotton. The King started to be chosen from leaders in other businesses, not just cotton, and was simply called King, or Rex Carnivali, instead of "King Cotton."
For many years, the Cotton Carnival was mostly for white people. In 1934, a Black dentist named Dr. R.Q. Venson took his nephew to a Carnival parade. His nephew said he didn't like it because "all the negroes were horses," referring to the Black men who pulled the floats. As a result, Dr. Venson and other Black Memphians decided to create their own separate event. This led to the Cotton Makers' Fiesta, organized in 1934. It later became the Cotton Makers' Jubilee and was held as a protest to gain dignity and respect for Black men and women. The first celebration was in May 1936. The Jubilee was most successful from 1948 to 1958. It only stopped twice: during World War II and in 1968 due to the events surrounding Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. The Cotton Makers' Jubilee briefly joined Carnival Memphis in 1982, becoming the krewe Kemet Jubilee.
The King is still an older man connected to the industry being celebrated, and the Queen is still a young, unmarried woman from one of Memphis's well-known families. This tradition has stayed the same.
Some people felt Carnival was only for a select few because of the secret activities of the royalty and Grand Krewes. Their memberships and parties were by invitation only. Many outsiders would read newspaper stories about fancy balls and dinners held by these mysterious, Egyptian-themed krewes and wonder why they couldn't attend. This feeling of separation led to accusations that Carnival was "elitist."
Carnival Memphis Today
By the late 1900s, Carnival Memphis was seen by some as just a series of formal parties for the city's elite at private clubs. It seemed to be losing its importance. The parades, grand parties, fireworks, and the busy atmosphere of a city celebrating were mostly gone.
However, Carnival officials realized these issues and began working to include more people. More and more Carnival events are now open to the public. African-American Memphians are starting to take part, and Carnival had a Black Krewe, Cotton Makers' (now Kemet) Jubilee, from 1982 to 2007. Also, Carnival has started choosing local charities and organizing special events for the krewes, with each charity receiving money.
Seventy-four years later, the main goals of Carnival Memphis are still similar to 1931. It aims to recognize and promote an industry that greatly helps the Mid-South economy. It also promotes Memphis as a great place to live and work, and it creates an annual celebration for that industry and the people of the Mid-South. The motto of Carnival Memphis is "Convivium Cum Propositione," which is Latin for "The Party with a Purpose!" According to Jim Cole, who attended many Cotton Carnivals in the 1950s and early 1960s, "Elvis Presley was a major headline entertainer during the mid 1950s."
Despite efforts from many important Memphians, some Carnival Krewes have stopped operating in recent years.
Images for kids
