When these men enter a room, the energy intensifies. They are a mission in motion: four dads bonded by a Zulu brotherhood born in childhood dreams.
“When they walked, they used to scare me because they were all dressed up,” Wilbert Thomas said of his memories of the Zulu parade as a child. “I used to run and my father pulled me back up. I want to be one of them! I want to be one of them!”
These Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club members also share a fate so unthinkable they credit each other with their very survival. They are known as Zulu's “grieving four." Each of them has lost a son to violence. Three of their four sons shared their names. The void is as vast now as the day their sons were killed.
These are the faces behind the stories we've reported. We didn't know their identities then, at the time of their death. Clarence Becknell Jr. was a military vet with sense of humor who died trying to help a friend, only in this case, the battlefield was the interstate.
“I was told he was trying to help a friend, bringing a friend home and it wasn't meant for him, it was meant for someone else. That was what the detectives told me. That's all I know. Until this day, that's all we know,” said his father, Clarence Becknell Sr., a longtime Zulu member and the club’s historian emeritus.
Cleveland Nelson III was a tow truck driver known to tow people for free if they'd fallen on hard times. His dad wonders how much money he even had on him the day he was robbed and killed.
“My wife worked at the hospital so I went upstairs through the back of the hospital and I went up there where he was and I see that he had one hole in the back of his head as big as my thumb, and I just lost it,” said his father.
Melvin Labat may have been called "Lil’ Melvin" by his family but he had the biggest smile and a heart to match: a giving man who loved children. If he had an enemy, his father never knew it.
“He was shot four times, once in the back, once in the face and two more times and I don't know why and that's probably what’s eating me up. I would just like to know why,” said his father.
Travis Thomas was a fun-loving ladies’ man whose fatal mistake was coming to the rescue of a friend who'd just gotten into a fight.
“And when he got in the car with my son, they drove off, they followed them, shot them up,” said Wilbert Thomas. His son’s friend was shot twice. Travis was shot six times: bullet after bullet after bullet after bullet after bullet after bullet, until Travis' heart finally stopped and his father's broke.
“His last words to us were to take care of his baby and that's what where we are today,” Thomas said, as his eyes filled with tears.
Whoever said men don't cry hasn't endured much. It's therapy, they say. “When the lights go out, it's just you some nights,” said Labat. “I see my child every night. He comes to me in my sleep every night,” Becknell said.
Whether they are comforted by their memories or haunted by their deaths, they have not sat idle. Instead, they have plotted and planned, not on an event focused on violence, but one aimed at the root of many of society's problems and solutions: the family.
“It starts at home. It starts at home, you've got to give those values to kids,” Becknell said.
Now, Zulu and WWL-TV are taking a stand. This Sunday, May 8, the krewe will host its first Zulu on the Bayou free festival on Bayou St. John in Mid-City. The event will celebrate the city but it will also demand action from the people who call it home.
‘It has to be the whole community. It can't just be us or over on that side, across the street, it has to be the whole community getting together rallying saying we all are going to have to stop the violence,” Thomas said.
They are Zulu's “grieving four” and they have accepted their fate - even the unsolved cases among them, but they won't accept complacency. Let their sons' legacy be a cause even more elusive than justice, they say. Let it be peace.
The Zulu on the Bayou Festival begins Sunday at 11 a.m. at Bayou St. John and Orleans Avenue.
A special ceremony at 1 p.m. will honor the mothers of children who have been lost to violence. The Zulu “grieving four” will also be part of that ceremony. The daylong event will also feature local artists, food vendors and arts and crafts for sale. There will also be a Zulu store featuring official Zulu items. King Zulu and the Zulu Characters will make a special appearance and close the festival by leading the second line back to the Zulu headquarters on Broad and Orleans.
Musical acts include: Sheppard Band (11:05 a.m. – 11:35 a.m.); The Top Cats (11:45 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.); D.J. Captain Charles (12:45 p.m. – 1:05 p.m.); A Salute to Mothers from Zulu’s Grieving Four (1:05 p.m. – 1:25 p.m.); Amanda Shaw & The Cute Guys (1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.); Rechell Cook & Lisa Amos With The Ear Candy Band (2:40 p.m. – 3:40 p.m.); DJ Jubilee (3:50 p.m. – 4:10 p.m.); Glenn David Andrews (4:50 p.m. – 5:50 p.m.); and Rebirth Brass Band & Second Line (6:05 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.).