To embrace the double holiday, Soulard residents and couple Jake and Alice Dunlap, both 27, made pink sweatshirts for their neighbors stamped with the marshy state of Louisiana the birthplace of Mardi Gras in the U.S. that read I wanna be loved Bayou.
"They all have college educations, and some have advanced degrees, and they're unemployed?" says Alice Dunlap, 63, a retired speech language pathologist from Alexandria, Va. She supports the protests because, she says, anger lingers at those who profited while the nation's economy tanked.