Organization
The Sweet Potato Queens concept has been explained and made popular by a series of books by Jill Conner Browne, born in Tupelo and raised in Jackson, who came up with the idea in 1982. (Browne is the author of a number of books which form the backbone of the Sweet Potato Queen "movement.") It involves a belief in a sisterhood that promotes self esteem and positive thinking, appealing to mostly middle-aged middle-class women. As John Ray, the ordering manager at Politics and Prose in Washington once said of the Sweet Potato Queen books, "they began to empower women." In 2005, almost ten thousand women dressed up in costumes and came to Jackson for the annual Hal and Mal's St. Patrick’s Day parade, proceeds from which benefited a local children’s hospital.
Each local chapter assumes its own theme and designs its own costumes. Some of the chapters participate in parades and fund-raisers in their local communities.
Read more about this topic: Sweet Potato Queens
Famous quotes containing the word organization:
“Democracy means the organization of society for the benefit and at the expense of everybody indiscriminately and not for the benefit of a privileged class.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“When a man’s partner’s killed, he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him, he was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it. As it happens, we’re in the detective business; well, when one of your organization gets killed, it’s, it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it. Bad all around. Bad for every detective everywhere.”
—John Huston (1906–1987)
“The village had institutionalized all human functions in forms of low intensity.... Participation was high and organization was low. This is the formula for stability.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)