HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — For the Marching Maroon and White of Alabama A&M University, Thanksgiving will look a lot different this year. "The majority of our students have never been to New York before," Director of Bands Carlton Wright shares. "So, this is going to be huge for them. I want it to be a great experience for them, not just to go and march in the parade, get on the bus and come back home. But we have a lot of events that we want to do."
This year, they'll be featured as the only HBCU band in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Wright shared that this a been a goal since 2021 after seeing his alma mater in the parade. "The process started way back in 2021 when I watched the Thanksgiving Day parade and I saw two familiar bands Hampton University, I went to grad school there and also the University of Alabama was in the parade," Wright explains. "So, I decided right then to pull out my laptop and figure out what to do in order to get in the parade. "
Once they got the nod, practice followed and for students Madison Wright and Thunder Chiapa-Little, it's been an experience. "We're really excited. It's been a long work in progress, but it'll be very rewarding when we go out there and show what we got," Wright shares. "We really choreograph everything that we do. So, the fact that we get to take our own choreography to the Big Apple is amazing."
"It's my second time going to New York and it's my first time going as a tourist," Chiapa-Little shares. "Yeah, I get to perform, but it's really just the payoff to all the hard work, all of our hard work paying off. Every day from 4pm to about 930, we are together, the whole band working together. We were either on the field or in the bathroom, working on music, running over and over again because we got it under our fingers. Mentally, it's just consistency."
At last Wednesday's rehearsal, Director Wright shares how the performance they're taking to NYC is all done by the students. "What you just saw was all student generated," Wright explains. "We as a staff, we have to edit and say 'Okay, keep this. Scratch that' because, you know, we want to make sure that we're representing the university, and everything looks good, and everything is symmetrical."
To make the moment even special, they'll be the first band to lead the parade. "Well, Miles, College, I think in 2003, 2002 was the first HBCU in Alabama to do the parade and this year we are the only HBCU," Wright shares. "So that feels pretty good to be in the company of others that want to follow us."