NEW YORK — New York City’s West Indian American Day Parade kicks off Monday with thousands of revelers dancing and marching through Brooklyn in one of the largest celebrations of Caribbean culture in the world.
The annual Labor Day eventNow in its 57th year, the neighborhood’s Eastern Parkway transforms into a kaleidoscope of feathered costumes and colorful flags as participants parade down the main drag past towering floats with loudspeakers blasting soca and reggae music.
The parade routinely draws large crowds, who line the nearly 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) route from Crown Heights to the Brooklyn Museum. It’s also a popular destination for local politicians, many of whom have West Indian backgrounds or represent members of the city’s large Caribbean community.
The event traces its roots to the more traditional, pre-Lent Carnival celebrations started by a Trinidadian immigrant in Manhattan about a century ago, organizers said. The festivities were moved to the warmer months of the year in the 1940s.
Brooklyn, home to hundreds of thousands of Caribbean immigrants and their descendants, hosted the parade as early as the 1960s.
The Labor Day Parade is now the culmination of days of carnival activities in the city, including a steel band competition and J’Ouvert, a separate street party on Monday morning commemorating the liberation from slavery.