Labor Day Carnival - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Labor Day
Labor Day
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...

Parade
Parade
A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind...

(or West Indian Carnival), is an annual celebration held on American Labor Day

Labor Day

Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...

(the first Monday in September), in Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The main thoroughfare through this neighborhood is Eastern Parkway, a tree-lined boulevard designed by Frederick Law Olmsted extending two miles east-west.Originally, the area was known as Crow Hill....

, New York.

The main event of the parade is the West Indian-American Day Parade, which attracts between one and three million participators. The spectators and participators watch and follow the parade

Parade

A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind...

on its route along Eastern Parkway

Eastern Parkway (Brooklyn)

Eastern Parkway is a major boulevard that runs through a portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The road begins at Grand Army Plaza and extends east, running parallel to Atlantic Avenue, along the crest of the moraine that separates northern from southern Long Island, to Ralph Avenue...

.Popular islands from the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

which celebrate the parade include Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

, Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

, Barbados

Barbados

Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...

, saint Lucia

Saint Lucia

Saint Lucia is an island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 620 km2 and has an...

and Grenada

Grenada

Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...

Start in Harlem

Ms. Jessie Waddell and some of her West Indian friends started the Carnival

Carnival

Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...

in Harlem

Harlem

Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

in the 1920s by staging costume parties in large enclosed places like the Savoy, Renaissance and Audubon Ballroom

Audubon Ballroom

The Audubon Ballroom was a theatre and ballroom located on Broadway at 165th Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, north of Harlem in New York. It is best known as the site of Malcolm X's assassination on February 21, 1965....

s due to the cold wintry weather of February. This is the usual time for the pre-Lenten celebrations held in most countries around the world. However, because of the very nature of Carnival, and the need to parade in costume to music, indoor confinement did not work well.

The earliest known Carnival street parade was held on September 1, 1947. The Trinidad Carnival Pageant Committee was the founding force behind the parade, which was held in Harlem. The parade route was along Seventh Avenue

Seventh Avenue (Manhattan)

Seventh Avenue, known as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard north of Central Park, is a thoroughfare on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is southbound below Central Park and a two-way street north of the park....

, starting at 110th St.

The first Carnival Queen was Miss Dorothy Godfrey. The Committee raised money to finance the parade. They sold advertisement space and boosters, that were printed in a Souvenir Journal for West Indies Day, a booklet which is a memento of that first parade. Mrs. Jessie Waddell Compton is presented in the journal as the person "whose inspiration and enterprise" was owed to the formation of this committee. The committee consisted of Mrs. Waddell Compton-Chairman; Ivan H. Daniel-Vice Chairman; Conrad Matthews-Treasurer; Roy Huggins

Roy Huggins

Roy Huggins was an American novelist and an influential writer/creator and producer of character-driven television series, including Maverick, The Fugitive, and The Rockford Files....

-Secretary; and Robert J. Welsh-Assistant Secretary. Each member of the committee contributed in helping to organize the parade. The after-parade party, which the Trinidad Carnival Pageant Committee held at the Golden Gate Ballroom (located at 142nd St. and Lenox Ave), was arranged by James M. Green, another figure who helped make the first Carnival Parade in Harlem successful.

Move to Crown Heights

The permit for the Harlem parade was revoked in 1964. Five years later, a committee headed by Carlos Lezama, which eventually became the West Indian-American Day Carnival Association, obtained approval for the parade to be established on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, where it remains today.

In popular culture

Many Calypso

Calypso music

Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...

and Soca

Soca music

Soca is a style of music from Trinidad and Tobago. Soca is a musical development of traditional Trinidadian calypso, through loans from the 1960s onwards from predominantly black popular music....

songs from Trinidad make reference to Labour Day Carnival, including "Gunplay on the Eastern Parkway" by Calypso Rose

Calypso Rose

McArtha Linda Sandy-Lewis, better known as Calypso Rose is a Tobagonian calypsonian.She began writing songs at the age of 15, and has written over 800 songs. In 1966 she wrote the song Fire in Me Wire, which has since become a calypso anthem...

, "Melee (on the Eastern Parkway)" by Maestro, "Labour Day in Brooklyn" by the Mighty Sparrow

Mighty Sparrow

Mighty Sparrow or Birdie is a calypso singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Known as the "Calypso King of the World," he is one of the most well-known and successful calypsonians...

. Jay-Z

Jay-Z

Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...

mentions the Labor Day Carnival on his hit song Empire State of Mind

Empire State of Mind

"Empire State of Mind" is a song by American rapper and hip hop artist Jay-Z, featuring vocals and a chorus from R&B and soul singer Alicia Keys. It was released as the third single from Jay-Z's 11th studio album The Blueprint 3 by his Roc Nation label in October 2009...

when he says "3 dice Cee-lo, 3 card monte, Labor Day Parade, rest in peace Bob Marley".

Also the powerful Haitian kompa,zouk carnival music that attracts every year the biggest crowd on the parkway should also be credited as an important element of the West Indian day parade since day one. Many live merengue bands and stars such as Tabou Combo, Sweet Miky, T-Vice, Jakout,...have participated throughout the years in the parade.

Criticism of the parade

Critics of the parade contend that high consumption of alcohol in tandem with the soca

Soca music

Soca is a style of music from Trinidad and Tobago. Soca is a musical development of traditional Trinidadian calypso, through loans from the 1960s onwards from predominantly black popular music....

, calypso

Calypso music

, reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

, zouk

Zouk

Zouk is a style of rhythmic music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe & Martinique. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local Antillean Creole of French, although the word originally referred to, and is still used to refer to, a popular dance, based on the Polish dance, the...

and gangsta rap

Gangsta rap

Gangsta Rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and purports to reflect urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths. Lyrics in gangsta rap have varied from accurate reflections to fictionalized accounts. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word...

music at the parade incites violence among its participators. Likewise, the excessive bass volume presented is blamed to have caused numerous eardrum ruptures—particularly in the 2008 parade festivities.

Furthur critique involves numerous noise complaints to New York City's 3-1-1

3-1-1

The non-emergency telephone number 3-1-1 is a special N-1-1 telephone number in many communities in Canada and the United States that provides quick, easy-to-remember access to non-emergency municipal services or a Citizen Service Center...

service regarding sporadic marches beginning at midnight of the night prior to the parade. On 5 September, 2011, during the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn, New York City councilman Jumaane Williams

Jumaane Williams

Jumaane D. Williams is a Democratic politician who is a member of the New York City Council, representing the 45th Council District which includes parts of Flatbush, East Flatbush, Flatlands, and Canarsie in Brooklyn.-Personal:...

along with a few others were arrested for walking along a closed-off sidewalk, after stating he had received permission to do so from other officers.

Violence

In 2003, a man was fatally shot and another was stabbed in the neck. In 2005, one man was shot and killed along the parade route. In 2006, one man was shot and another was stabbed. By the 2007 parade, there was only one report of violence, when a man was shot twice in the leg.. In 2011 pre-dawn marches took a violent turn with the murder of one person, five instances of gunshot victims and three instances of stabbings coupled with sporadic shooting at crowds of people. Following the 2011 parade, Yolanda Lezama-Clark, The President of the West Indian American Day Carnival Association (WIADCA) and other New York City officials condemned the one or two incidents that took place at the parade.

External links

"West Indian-American Day Carnival Association" (WIADCA) official website
"Maps & Neighborhoods - Brooklyn" from the official "NYC & Company" website
"Brooklyn NY Festivals, Fairs & Events: September" from the official "Brooklyn Tourism and Visitors Center" website