The mardi gras beads were still dangling from giant oak trees when we arrived in New Orleans at the end of March. A local African American artist explains to me that as a kid on the streets during Mardi Gras, he’d shout, “over here! Hey mister throw some beads over here!” and glanced at the throngs of people catching fistfuls of the shiny necklaces and doubloons. He moved into the crowd of white people and crouched down.
