The Young Men Olympian Jr. Benevolent Association is the oldest club still parading in New Orleans. Members started it around 1882 and incorporated it in 1884, which makes it the second-oldest benevolent society in the whole country. Only the Firemen's Benevolent Association came before it.

It started because Black New Orleanians could not get health insurance or a death policy. Doctors, lawyers and musicians in the neighborhood put their money together so a member could see a doctor when he got sick, get his medicine covered, and be buried right. The club still keeps two tombs in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2 that belong to members only. Neither tomb carries a single name, just "Young Men Olympics" across the front, because in this club everybody has the same value.

The parade came later. About ten years in, members decided they were tired of only coming together for funerals, so they started marching for the anniversary instead. That anniversary parade still rolls Uptown every September and runs about four hours. Two weeks before it, the club holds a smaller parade and a church service, calls the names of the members who died that year, and swears in the new officers.

The colors are black and white. All white, all black, or the two together. As long as those colors are on you, you are dressed.

YMO rolls six divisions deep, and every division brings its own band:
The Body, the root of the club. Black and white and nothing else required. It can never go away.
The New Look, the young division, 19 and under.
The Furious Five, started by Waldorf "Gip" Gipson after the Uptown Swingers pulled out.
The Untouchables, the division known for the expensive suits.
The Big Steppers.
The First Division.

Some of the clubs you see on the calendar today started out as YMO divisions before going out on their own: the Original 4, the Perfect Gentlemen and the Uptown Swingers.

Watch the banner and you will know how the year went. The blue side means nobody in the club died since the last parade. The black side means somebody did. On parade day the banner leads. On a funeral it walks behind the casket.

Norman Dixon Sr. ran the board for 25 years and built the friendship with Quint Davis that brought second lines to Jazz Fest. After he passed, the Norman Dixon Sr. Foundation was set up to help clubs cover the cost of parade permits. His son, Norman Dixon Jr., joined in 1974 when he was seven years old and is the president today. Jerome "DJ Jubilee" Temple is the grand marshal, holding the order and the clock together through all four hours.

The club bought its own building in 2004, which almost no social aid and pleasure club can say. Meetings happen there, repasts happen there, and the parade starts and ends there. YMO has also carried the tradition out to Spain, England, France and Australia.

Like every Social Aid & Pleasure Club, the parade is only the part you see. The rest of the year is dues, benevolence and looking after the membership. Aid first, then the parade. The way Norman Dixon Jr. says it: "we do so much more than parade."

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