This project is offered in connection with the exhibition Mystery in Motion: African American Masking and Spirituality in Mardi Gras, which was on display at the Louisiana State Museum Presbytère from February 13 - November 28, 2021. This documentation is made possible through the Good Life Project, an initiative of Morgan State University's Center for the Study of Religion and the City (CSRC) with support from the Henry Luce Foundation. This program is also funded by a 2021 Rebirth Grant. Funding for 2021 Rebirth grants has been administered by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) and provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the NEH Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) initiative. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this project do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Kim Vaz-Deville is a professor of education at Xavier University. Her research focuses on expressive arts in response to large group social trauma. Her book The ‘Baby Dolls’: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition from the Louisiana State University Press, 2013 was the basis for a Louisiana State Museum exhibition titled “They Call Me Baby Doll, A Mardi Gras Tradition” and was selected for the 2016 One Book One New Orleans’ adult literacy campaign with eight accompanying community events. Her anthology Walking Raddy: The Baby Dolls of New Orleans published by the University Press of Mississippi in, 2018 further explores the tradition.