Super Sunday is an annual gathering of Mardi Gras Indian tribes celebrating their heritage and culture in a magnificent display of hand-sewn suits, singing, dancing and chanting.  The festival at A.L. Davis Park located at Washington and LaSalle Streets on Sunday, March 20, is free and open to the public beginning at 11 a.m.

Bands and other special guests will include Hot 8 Brass Band, Young Pinstripe Brass Band, TBC Brass Band, Rechell Cook, 21st Century Brass Band, Regeneration Band, DJ Captain Charles, DJ Jubilee, Keedy Black, Young Men Olympians Benevolent Association, Lady Buckjumpers, B.R.W. R&B Singing Group, N’awlins D’awlins Baby Dolls and the Prince of Wales Social Aid and Pleasure Club.

The Super Sunday parade will begin at 1 p.m. on a route that loops through Central City. The procession begins at the intersection of Washington Avenue and LaSalle Streets before moving onto Simon Bolivar Avenue, turning left onto Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard before turning left onto Claiborne Avenue and then turning left onto Washington Avenue, culminating at A.L. Davis Park.

Mardi Gras Indians will also gather on the night prior, known as St. Joseph’s Night, at various locations around the city. Read more about this tradition in a subscriber-exclusive feature story by Geraldine Wyckoff from the March 2022 digital edition of OffBeat.

“The question of when the Indians began masking on St. Joseph’s night remains a mystery,” writes Wyckoff. “The late Mardi Gras Indian Council ‘Chief of Chiefs’ Robbe (Robert Lee) once recalled that there were Black Indians out on the holiday when he first started masking in 1929. He said he also knew Black Indians who hit the streets on St. Joseph’s night before World War I.”

Prior to 1969, Mardi Gras Indians celebrated by coming out at night to meet and greet other tribes. In 1969, the first parade was created and rolled through city at night. In 1970, the procession became a day parade on Sunday afternoon, and has continued in that tradition to this day.