The Original Black Seminole Baby Dolls are a Black Masking Baby Doll group founded by Joel Lee (also spelled Joell Lee). The Baby Doll tradition began in Black Storyville around 1910, born of a competition between women vying for business on Mardi Gras; the women took to the streets wearing bonnets and bloomers and smoking cigars — proud, defiant women in a male-dominated world. By the 1930s the Baby Dolls were an iconic part of Black Mardi Gras, evolving into a social group much like the Mardi Gras Indians and the social aid and pleasure clubs.
The Original Black Seminole Baby Dolls marked ten years of keeping the tradition with their 2025 Mardi Gras Day walk, themed 'We are still here!' — a Founder's Celebration of Jo Baby and Scarlet Monarch — stepping off from Treme's Petit Jazz Museum at 1500 Governor Nicholls with the Where Ya At Brass Band. Their annual Treme Sashay rolls out of the museum on Mardi Gras morning in hand-sewn regalia.
The group parades throughout the year — at the Downtown Super Sunday along Bayou St. John, at festivals across the city, and on the 2026 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival lineup. In 2025 they hosted a fundraiser at Hotel Storyville's Garden, a gathering of music, culture and community in a favorite setting for New Orleans cultural gatherings.
