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Filmmaker Phoebe Ferguson, great great grand-daughter of Judge John Howard Ferguson (Plessy vs Ferguson), uncovers the hidden world of New Orleans' black debutante society. Member of the Club is the story about New Orleans' black aristocracy as seen through the eyes of an African American teenage debutante and her matriarchic family. At the center of the film is seventeen-year-old Marisa Ariane Mitchell, a debutant who has been in training for her role as a Mardi Gras Queen ever since infancy. Surrounding marisa are two strong women: Adrienne Mitchell, Marisa's mother, and Lorraine Petit, Marisa's grandmother. Their love for marisa and deep sense of mission-that Marisa should ascend to royal status and gain her crown as Queen-provides a window into the heavily ritualized, largely unknown world of the black social society clubs of the South. Member of the Club is a dramatic coming of age story that sheds light on race, class and the powerful desire of an American family to belong.

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