From Brazil’s stadium and street carnival celebrations to Barbados’ Crop Over festivals and our eager anticipation of Rihanna’s costumes to Toronto’s Caribana, carnival festivities beautifully illustrate the celebratory roots of Caribbean culture.
This past Monday (September 4, 2017) as the West Indian Day American Parade celebrated its 50th anniversary, we took our cameras to Brooklyn to highlight the colors, the costumes and of course the fun.
Started an indoor ballroom celebration by Jessie Wardell and her friends in Harlem in the 1930s, in 1940 the party moved outside when Wardell secured a permit for the first street parade that started on 110th Street and progressed down 7th Avenue.
The street carnival’s permit was revoked in 1964, but a committee headed by Carlos Lezama became the West Indian-American Day Carnival Association (WIADCA), the engine behind the current version of the parade celebrated along Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway.
Check out some of the action below. All photos by Snobette.
