With its president saying it had racist origins, the New Orleans school board has unanimously reversed a little known but century-old ban on jazz in schools in a city which played a huge role in developing jazz and where it is still played nightly at various venues. “I’m very glad that we can rescind this…
During Carnival season, flocks of marching bands parade through the city streets even though jazz music and dancing has been banned in New Orleans public schools for almost a century.
Officials told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate that the policy has racist origins, as its creators sought at the time to distance New Orleans schoolchildren from the African Americans who created the genre. The rule has been ignored for decades.