NEW ORLEANS - Since he was a teenager, Monk Boudreaux has been donning a Technicolor suit of beads and feathers and taking to the streets as a Mardi Gras Indian, shaking a tambourine and singing songs that have made him famous well beyond the streets of his Uptown neighborhood.

Boudreaux, 80, is big chief of the Golden Eagles, one of an estimated three dozen "tribes" of Black men and women across New Orleans who emerge every spring to show off their elaborate creations in a series of parades. It's a tradition that dates back more than a century to when segregation barred Black residents from participating in the city's parades.

"Nothing has stopped us, not even Katrina," said Boudreaux, an elder of the tribes who is credited as one of the first Mardi Gras Indians to record music. His decade-spanning career has taken him around the world and earned him a Grammy nomination this year.

Members of the groups — also known as Black-masking Indians — design and sew their own elaborately beaded suits, which alternately pay homage to Native Americans who helped protect runaway slaves and celebrate African culture. The suits include patch-like elements sewn with thousands of tiny beads depicting historical figures and scenes, as well as intricate headdresses sewn with colorful plumes of feathers.

Even with round-the-clock sewing, many suits take upward of a year to create, a costly labor of devotion that has kept going despite all the challenges faced by New Orleans' citizens.

But in 2020, the world came to a halt. Just weeks after Boudreaux and the other tribes debuted their latest suits at the city's Mardi Gras celebrations, New Orleans became an early epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic that would disproportionately sicken working-class Black residents across the city — including members of the tribes and their families. The city canceled the 2021 celebrations amid fears of a new surge in illness.

Forced inside, Boudreaux said he and the maskers did the only thing they could do. "Sew, sew, sew," Boudreaux said, nodding to the lyrics of a longtime chant that has been a mainstay of Mardi Gras Indian culture.

It's a rebirth that coincides with the reawakening of New Orleans after two years of loss and struggle, not only from the pandemic but also from Hurricane Ida last summer, as elders such as Boudreaux try to keep the tradition going among younger generations against the backdrop of an increasingly gentrified city.

"I was always told, 'You've got to keep it going. You keep the tradition going, because if you let it go, it's going to be gone forever,' " Boudreaux said. "So that's what I'm doing."

Victor Harris

The Spirit of Fi Yi Yi and big chief of the Mandingo Warriors has masked for 57 years, longer than any other Mardi Gras Indian. His suits are African-themed, covered in cowrie shells and beads, with an elaborate warrior-style mask that covers his face. "It's not easy being a chief, just like it's not easy being a mother or father. . . . It's a responsibility because people look up to you. They respect you. They look for you to lead them the right way," said Harris 72, who lives in the Lower Ninth Ward and lost his home and many of his older suits to Katrina. "I try to teach about the culture, how this is something our ancestors did. . . . When I do this, I think of the struggle of those before me. . . . It's been a struggle for us all our lives. There's still a struggle. . . . But this has also been my survival."

Demond Melancon

Tiara Horton

The queen of the 9th Ward Black Hatchet first saw the Mardi Gras Indians when she was 7 and dreamed of parading but couldn't afford to create her own suit. In 2017, the second-grade teacher finally began masking as a queen, with modern suits that depicted characters and scenes from the racial justice movement. Her 2020 Black Lives Matter suit, created before the killing of George Floyd, featured beaded portraits of Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland alongside historic figures like the Obamas. "This is my way of protesting," said Horton, 31. "When I get out in the streets, I am going to make you see me."

Terrance Williams Jr.