Joseph Stillwell Cain, Jr. (Joe Cain) (October 10, 1832 – April 17, 1904) is largely credited with the rebirth of Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile, Alabama, stopped due to the Civil War. In 1867, following the American Civil War and while Mobile was still under Union occupation, Joe Cain paraded through the streets of Mobile, dressed in improvised costume depicting a fictional Chickasaw chief named Slacabamorinico. The choice was a backhanded insult to the Union forces in that the Chickasaw tribe had never been defeated in war. Joe was joined by six other Confederate veterans, parading in a decorated coal wagon, playing drums and horns, and the group became the "L. C. Minstrel Band", now commonly referred to as the "Lost Cause Minstrels" of Mobile.
Read more about Joe Cain: Life and Work, Gravesite, Joe Cain Day
Famous quotes containing the words joe and/or cain:
“While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a woodchopper’s axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude.... When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, “By George, I’ll bet that was a moose! They make a noise like that.” These sounds affected us strangely, and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and wildness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I’ll kill you with my own hands rather than let you put the mark of Cain on my brother!”
—Abraham Polonsky (b. 1910)