BY: T’NEIL GOODEN
This year’s Caribbean Day Parade held a new meaning for veterans and newcomers alike. The theme, Vive Le Carnivale, pays homage to Trinidad and Tobago, an area of the Caribbean with a French Afro-Creole culture. The festivities also brought J’Ouvert, a pre-dawn cultural celebration, back to the streets of Brooklyn.
The parade originated in the 20th century, when Jessie Wardell, an immigrant from Trinidad, and her companions started the Carnival in Harlem. Trinidadian Rufus Goring brought it to Brooklyn, where it became a citywide event for West Indian immigrants.
This year’s attendees lined Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway, from Utica Avenue to Grand Army Plaza, on September 1st, 2025, shouting the names of their home countries with pride, including Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, and other Caribbean countries. Parade-goers flooded the area
with Caribbean flags, cuisines, and music to celebrate the yearly parade. Many colors filled the streets of Crown Heights.
The organizers of this annual event are the West Indian American Day Carnival Association (WIADCA), a non-profit group that provides events and programs throughout New York City. WIADCA has been hosting this event since the 1930s, and every year, it presents a different theme for the parade attendees, which is chosen by the committee months before the carnival preparation begins.
This year’s theme “encompasses the embodiment of our diversity and the fact that the Caribbean involves French Creole, East Indian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Asian; every culture is represented in our Caribbean islands,” said Cecille Ford, WIADCA secretary and board member since 2007.
Vendors and revelers alike believe this parade provides a community that represents the Caribbean nations, no matter the theme.
Cassandra Black, a vendor for the parade for the past ten years, shares the same testimony. “The fun, the vibes, the food, the culture. It just keeps expanding. It keeps getting bigger,” Black said. “It’s incorporated with just community, all Caribbean vibes, just nationwide to just bring in a big experience.”
Before the parade began, Ford had a request for the participants and observers of the event. “We would like people to really understand that the fact is it’s a masquerade, it’s a portrayal of costumes, and that we want to keep it safe,” Ford said. “It’s a family event and we want everyone to participate and enjoy, but please allow the persons who are in the costume to enjoy without the non-participants coming in.”
But later on that evening, between the hours of 5:30 pm and 9:30 pm, there were four different shootings and a slashing that occurred during the parade. All victims are expected to survive, and no immediate arrests or charges have been made.
Despite the violence later in the day, most people were able to enjoy the parade peacefully.
“Long live the Carnival,” said Rika Swaby, a Boston native who is a regular parade attendee. “100, 500 years after I’m gone, this still needs to be a thing because I want my grandkids, my great grandkids, and my great great great grandkids to know what this is. To know that we’re celebrating each other always.”