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Black History Month: The rich history of Black debutante
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BATON ROUGE - The oldest Black debutante club in the country was created in New Orleans 130 years ago. Every year the Young Men Illinois Club choose several young ladies to be presented to society at their annual ball, but there is always one lucky girl who gets the privilege to reign as queen.
This year, the queen is Ava Rose Robertson, a senior at Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge.
"I'm continuing the tradition with my family. That was really important to me being apart of YMI, just like my older cousins had been," Robertson said.
Her family has been involved with the club for years. Her great-uncle, Lawrence Robinson, is the ball captain for the club. Robinson says the club started in 1895 by a group of men.
"[The men] worked the Illinois central railroad that traveled between New Orleans and Chicago," Lawrence Robinson said, explaining the club's history. "They were butlers on the Illinois Central railroad. Whenever they were on a layover in town or whatever, these guys would work as butlers in the big rich white homes in uptown New Orleans. It was there that they saw what the young white girls were being presented and they said, 'we can do this for our Black girls."
In 1926, there was conflict within the club that would change it forever. Two of the club's members both wanted their daughters to be queen, so the club ultimately split.
Since then, there have been two separate clubs: Original Illinois Club and Young Men Illinois Club. However, the desire for the crown remains the same.
"They put their daughter's name of the list at an early age. We've known Ava was going to be queen for quite a few years," Lawrence Robinson said.
Now that the ball is over, Ava is donating her gown to the LSU Textile and Costume museum. The museum has more than 5,000 clothing artifacts that each tell a broad history of LSU and the greater region.
"Put it on a pedestal," Ava said, "because it was a custom made dress and it was all for this one night. I don't want it to be sitting in a closet somewhere. I want it to be appreciated."
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