New Orleans marches for Palestine at start of Mardi Gras

New Orleans, Jan. 6 – Marchers under the banner of “New Orleans for a Free Palestine” filled the street ahead of the Joan of Arc parade, the first of the Mardi Gras season. With a brass band among them – NOLA Musicians for Palestine – they chanted “Gaza, Gaza, you will rise, Palestine will never die!” bringing the message of liberation to thousands gathered in the French Quarter.

The pre-Joan of Arc march is now a three-year tradition. They have marched every year since the current U.S.-Israeli genocide began following the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on Oct. 7, 2023, but is not the only such intervention in Carnival festivities.

For example, a Palestinian-led parade krewe – the Krewe of Chickpea – has also paraded in recent years on Lundi Gras, the day before Mardi Gras Day. (Lundi Gras falls on Feb. 16 this year.) Krewe of Chickpea takes inspiration both from New Orleans traditions (e.g., the Krewe of Red Beans that also marches on Lundi Gras) as well as Palestinian music and the pre-colonial spring festival of Mawsim in Palestine. 

In a display of internationalist solidarity, Krewe of Chickpea parades with Krewe of Las Frijolitas (little beans), a Dominican-led krewe. They honor figures like Mamá Tingó, a farm worker and activist who fought for rural farming communities in the Dominican Republic starting in the early 1970s. They have also honored the Venezuelan environmental activist Tortugita, who was shot and killed by Georgia State troopers in 2023 during the Stop Cop City struggle in Atlanta.

Now and historically, Mardi Gras is suffused with the spirit of resistance in majority-Black New Orleans. It is more than the tourism-money bonanza promoted by state and city leaders. Raising the banner of resistance – for Palestine, for Latin America, for Black and working-class New Orleans – is especially urgent this year. The genocide in Gaza grinds on while our city is occupied by ICE and the National Guard. These things are connected. The same people are behind it.