Some folks come to the game just to see the band. In this tribute to the sights and sounds of her childhood, Karen Good Marable (who grew up in Prairie View, Texas) explains why.
by Karen Good Marable
November 04, 2021
I lay on my grandmother’s bed, looking up at the ceiling, listening to the drums. The door was closed, the room was dark, and it was past my bedtime. I’d stayed up watching “The Incredible Hulk,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” and “Dallas,” even though I knew I had to get up early. Aunt Nita, Uncle Lee, and my cousin Pam would be here in the morning, driving three and a half hours from Port Arthur with mac and cheese, potato salad, beers, and boudin. Mama would make her famous rum cake.
Tomorrow was Prairie View A&M University’s Homecoming, which, for us, held the same excitement as Christmas. Our house would soon be filled with family, loud laughter, and good times. But for now, except for the din of the news and the Marching Storm, it was quiet.
Sound waves from tuba, bass drum, and snare echoed throughout the town, rode the wind, bounced off houses and trees, right through my window. Hearing the band practice gave me a thrill, like I had a special preview ticket to the big show, and I listened for any songs I might know. But before long, my lids got heavy and the band outlasted me, playing into my dreams like a long-loved lullaby.
The Prairie View A&M Marching Storm and the Panther Dolls dance team perform at the 2016 Honda Battle of the Bands. Photo by Brian Cahn.
My family woke early the next morning, purposeful in our movements. Aunt Nita and nem had arrived, and the plan was to walk to the campus (no need to drive; the traffic would be bad, and where would we park?) and be in front of the library by 9 to see the bands perform. PV paraphernalia was the order of the day; purple and gold T-shirts or sweatshirts, depending on the coolness of the morning, jeans, sweatsuits, or cutoff shorts. Then out the door, taking a left on Pine Street, around the corner, past the Wyatts’, the Wallaces’, and the Wilsons’; past the horseshoe and the Parkers, who were already gathered in front of their house, on down Elm Street, where we walked out of the Alta Vista neighborhood and took a left onto University Drive.
The air smelled of smoked meats and held a charge. Bands and elaborately festooned floats were already lined up on the mile-long parade route, which began in a field off University and followed up past the flagpoles, then a left on L.W. Minor Street, past the W.R. Banks Library, down to the “Baby Dome,” where it ended. The floats, pulled by pickups, brimmed with party fringe and were painted purple and gold. Each college and student union, club sorority, and frat had one, some as simple as a convertible decorated with streamers and a sign, the riders wearing sashes. Music played as the procession passed, from Parliament-Funkadelic to zydeco. The best floats threw candy to us kids screaming and waving, walking with the parade or waiting with their parents on the side of the road.
Photo by Brian Cahn.
Peppered between floats were the bands, the backbone of the parade. This is what the people came for, why my family walked so quickly up the hill to find a place in front of the library, near the judges’ table. Bands came from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) from all over Texas and the SWAC (Southwestern Athletic Conference) bearing grand, mythic names, including Texas Southern’s Ocean of Soul, Jackson State’s Sonic Boom of the South, Grambling’s Tiger Marching Band, and Tuskegee’s Marching Crimson Pipers.
The members marched in full regalia: chest plates and double-sided capes; military shako hats and furry busbies. Predominantly Black high school bands from Houston represented, too, the schools I wished I could attend: Yates, Wheatley, Worthing, Willowridge.
Each corps marched with something to prove. Drum majors blew their whistles, the dancers stepped lively, and the band members held their instruments at 45 degrees. Their parade performances held the promise of what awaited us during halftime at the game. In turn, we kids marched beside them like it was Carnival or Mardi Gras, moving our arms, sashaying our hips, whipping our hair.
After the parade, we went home to rest and get ready for the game. My big cousin and I changed into something cuter, casual enough to walk back to the yard. When we arrived at the stadium, we passed through the tailgaters staging a huge cookout in the parking lot with vendors. Folks set up tents and RVs and grills, ready to hang out and see people they haven’t seen since college.
Once inside and seated, we enjoy the deliciously Black experience of being in the stands at Homecoming, which is its own kind of party. Between the shenanigans of the spectators, the business of the football game, and the thrill of the band, we are thoroughly entertained. The corps engage in straight-up battles from clear across the field while the majorettes sit with their backs straight and their legs crossed until their leader stands and does an eight-count move and her teammates follow suit.
Members of the Prairie View A&M University Marching Storm perform during the 2018 H-E-B Thanksgiving Day Parade. Photo by Roberto Galan.
There’s a reason some folks only come to the game to see the bands perform and leave when halftime is over. The show begins with the announcer, a raconteur skilled in elocution, majesty, call and response, and the dozens. (Once, an announcer for the opposing team said of our majorettes, “All of you Prairie View Black Foxes / Get back in your boxes.”)
The drum major — ceremonial mace under his right arm — blows the whistle to let everybody know it’s about to go down. Other drum majors rush to the front, kicking their feet forward as they run, while the band marches into place, forming the school’s initials: PVU. Then the brass section introduces the Marching Storm signature opener: the theme to “Entertainment Tonight.”
That’s the theme song for a reason. They have come to entertain. First, there is the sheer force of the band’s sound, live music instrumentation that is both clear and pure, strong and palpable. Cymbals flash, rise, and fall; tubas carry the majesty of elephants walking across the field. The flag-bearers wave in the background, the drum majors spin midair and land into splits, and the Black Foxes step out from the sidelines, arms by their sides, heads up and hands lifted at the wrists like members of Alpha Kappa Alpha.
In the middle of this organized chaos, band members put down their trumpets and saxophones, flutes and french horns, and do the Cabbage Patch. When they play Maze’s “Back in Stride,” we, the people in the stands, rise up and not only sing along with the band — “I’m just happy to see you and me / Back in stride again” — we act out the chorus. We smile (happy), point to our eyes (to see), then point to the person across from us (you), and then ourselves (me), lean back and take one step to the side (back in stride again).
A member of the Prairie View A&M marching band performs during halftime at the NFL regular season game between the Houston Texans and the Jacksonville Jaguars at NRG Stadium in Houston in 2019. Photo by Erik Williams.
If there is something that made me, sure as stardust and God’s unchanging hands, it is this: My upbringing in an HBCU town. The band, the stands, the Black joy. It is the reason I knew I could not possibly go to any school but an HBCU. This has nothing to do with a party, mind you, and everything to do with SOUL. This performative, Southern-rooted experience is what I hold onto. What I take with me — proudly — in this life.
Pride may be the point. Proud of the ingenuity of Black people. Proud of where I’m from. Proud every time Prairie View performs in a big event, such as the Rose Bowl or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Proud that Beyoncé, who is from Houston, made the very dope decision to bring the HBCU Homecoming experience to Coachella in 2018, as the first Black woman headliner. And even prouder that her drumline captain, Larry Allen, is a former PVAMU drum major. *pops collar*
Prairie View has changed in a lot of ways, and I haven’t lived there in years. U.S. Route 290 was rebuilt smack-dab through the back of Alta Vista, crossing University Drive, now Sandra Bland Parkway. With “progress” comes a loss of quiet; there is the drone of 18-wheelers and unceasing traffic.
But sometimes, I lie in the dark in my old room, look up at the ceiling, and listen to the Marching Storm. I almost feel like a kid again: Safe. Loved. Home.
“On the March” is available in Issue No. 2 of The Bitter Southerner magazine.
Karen Good Marable lives in Atlanta, Georgia. She's also lived in Prairie View, Texas (hometown); Brooklyn, New York; Harlem; Washington, D.C.; and Sarasota, Florida. Her writing and journalism have appeared in books and publications such as The New Yorker, Oxford American, Essence and more.
Header image: The Prairie View A&M Marching Storm perform at the 2016 Honda Battle of the Bands. The HBOB is an annual invitational showcase of Historically Black College and University marching bands. Photo by Brian Cahn.
