Left to right: Andrew Wiseman, Alton Osborn, Jamilah Yejide Peters-Muhammad, Royce Osborn, and Luther Gray

Left to right: Andrew Wiseman, Alton Osborn, Jamilah Yejide Peters-Muhammad, Royce Osborn, and Luther Gray

This group of culture bearers have played key roles in sustaining Black masking practices. Andrew Wiseman is percussionist for the Guardians of the Flame Maroon Society, a Black masking Indian group. Hailing from the Ewe people of Ghana in West Africa, he and his family are master drummers and storytellers. Weisman teaches African drumming and choreography nationally and internationally. Jamilah Yejide Peters-Muhammad, a community outreach nurse at the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic, is also a percussionist, choreographer, teacher, and performer of African dance and culture. The brothers Royce (1958–2017) and Alton Osborn founded the Congo Square Skull and Bone Gang, and Royce’s 2003 documentary All on a Mardi Gras Day renewed community interest in Black masking traditions. Luther Gray founded the Congo Square Preservation Society in 1994, and his activism resulted in the site’s addition to the National Register of Historic Places. His percussion group, Bamboula 2000, performs regularly in Congo Square and across the country.