Nobody missed work to attend.
As Donald Trump was being inaugurated in Washington, D.C. on Friday, a brass band was warming up with mournful tones outside the gates of Armstrong Park.
The dirge played and protesters lowered a papier-mache Statue of Liberty into a wooden coffin. And as the band switched over to the bolder songs of a second-line, more than 200 protesters kicked off the Jazz Funeral for Lady Liberty, one of several anti-Trump events planned in New Orleans in the coming days.
The crowd and atmosphere was festive as the march took off down N. Rampart Street, with costumed protesters waving signs as they marched down Canal Street into the French Quarter. And the attitude of many was defiance.
“We’ve made so much progress over the last eight years and we can’t lose that without a fight,” said Dixie McIlwraight, as she helped push the casket along.
As they marched, protesters chanted “No Big Sleazy in the Big Easy” and carrying signs with slogans such as “Let’s not make America hate again” and “Never have so few ignored so many.”