Allison "Big Chief Tootie" Montana

Montana made his living as a lather, building the wood or metal frames that hold plaster. In the suits he introduced vibrant colors, ostrich feathers and geometric beadwork, shifting attention toward artistry, and his bright suits drew crowds on Super Sunday. He spoke against gang violence and urged competition through dance, music and suit design. The tradition is traced to slavery, to people who escaped and found shelter with Indigenous communities, and masking honors that help. He received a National Heritage Fellowship in 1987, and tribes from across the city gathered to sing and dance at his funeral.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Congo Square — steps away
  The 2.35-acre corner of Louis Armstrong Park where, from 1817, New Orleans confined Sunday dancing by enslaved people to one place, and where crowds of hundreds gathered to drum, dance and trade.
• St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 — 0.2 mi
  New Orleans' oldest surviving city of the dead, opened in 1789 after the fire of 1788 and the burial place of Homer Plessy, reachable only on a guided tour since March 2015.
• The Historic New Orleans Collection — 0.4 mi
  A French Quarter museum and research center founded in 1966, whose 2015 Purchased Lives exhibition took on New Orleans' place as the largest slave market in antebellum America.
• The Cabildo — 0.4 mi
  The Spanish town hall on Jackson Square, finished in 1799, where Louisiana changed flags in 1803 and where the state Supreme Court sat in the same room until 1910, Plessy v. Ferguson among its cases.

More markers nearby

• Sidney Joseph Bechet — steps away
• Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong — steps away
• Congo Square — steps away
• Mahalia Jackson — steps away