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When Mardi Gras was last canceled: World War II and the return of frivolity in 1946
Updated Feb 11, 2021;
Posted Feb 11, 2021
A picture of the 1946 Kings Parade hangs on the wall at the Mobile Carnival Museum in downtown, Mobile, Ala.
The parades during the 1946 Mardi Gras were the first to take place along the Alabama Gulf Coast since 1941. For four years, from 1942-1945, Mardi Gras events like parades were canceled due to World War II. The next time there was widespread cancellations during Mardi Gras in Mobile was in 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The original photo of this image holds a place is in the holdings of the Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Collection at the University of South Alabama.
WHYY
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It’s not easy to recognize important historical moments while they’re happening.
But 2020 has been a year marked by disaster and debacle. It has featured a deadly global pandemic, a reckoning over racism in the wake of several Black Americans killed by police, and a tense, litigious election.
Looking back, historians, political insiders, and on-the-ground organizers agree that the last 12 months or so will leave an indelible impression.
“I don’t know a historian right now who isn’t still kind of in shock,” said Timothy Lombardo, a Philadelphia-born historian of conservative politics.
Lombardo, who is now a professor at the University of South Alabama, is careful to note it’s impossible to predict how the future will remember the present too many moving parts and extenuating factors. However, it’s possible to take cues from the past.