The Pursuit of Pleasure. [REX KREWE] THE KING OF THE CARNIVAL Ephemera

Large broadsheet tinted lithograph by A. Hoen & Co. of Baltimore, issued as part of the Carnival edition of the New Orleans Times-Democrat. 710 x 1010 mm. with adverts to verso, chips and tears with some tape repairs, suitable for archival restoration. The Rex Organisation, known simply as Rex, was founded in 1872, and stages one of the most celebrated parades on Mardi Gras; it has held more parades than any other parading organisation in New Orleans. In 1991 the New Orleans city council passed an ordinance that required social organisations, including Mardi Gras krewes, to certify publicly that they did not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, in order to obtain parade permits and other public licensure. In effect, the ordinance required these, and other, private social groups to abandon their traditional code of secrecy and identify their members for the city's Human Relations Commission. The Mistick Krewe of Comus (along with Momus and Proteus, other 19th century Krewes) withdrew from parading rather than identify its membership. Rex decided to comply with the new ordinance, rather than disappear from the main event of Mardi Gras Day. Two federal courts later declared that the ordinance was an unconstitutional infringement on First Amendment rights of free association and an unwarranted intrusion on the privacy of the groups subject to the ordinance.The Supreme Court refused to hear the city's appeal from this decision. While the Krewe of Proteus returned to parading in 2000, the Mistick Krewe of Comus and the Knights of Momus have not since been seen.