London’s famous Notting Hill Carnival has been canceled this year, but here’s a look back at the party

The Notting Hill Carnival, a Caribbean celebration in London, has been held in late August every year since the 1960s. Before the pandemic, it used to draw more than 2 million people into the streets of London to eat. Celebrate West Indian culture.

The UK’s first carnival is credited to Trinidadian journalist and activist Claudia Jones, who was the founder and editor-in-chief of West Indian Gazette. During the 1950s, Notting Hill was in News to racial intolerance and riots rooted in the white working class and against members of the Black community. Jones saw an opportunity to push back against racist violence with glee, hosting a 1959 carnival in his house.

In the 1970s, a young teacher named Leslie Palmer organized the event. “I was a teacher at that time and wanted to quit teaching.” he told Anneline Christie by media company Ilovecarnivall in 2019. “The festival seems to be dying. There’s an advertisement in Time Out for all those interested in carnivals attending a meeting. There are only five people. I came up with my idea.”

Palmer encourages people to rent food stalls along the festival route. He also recruited local Steelpan bands and other musicians with loudspeakers and sponsored the event. Palmer is also credited with expanding the event to include everyone in the Caribbean community and not just people of West Indian descent. The event, which attracts more than 1 million participants annually, has been troubled by riots over the years. But overall, the festival goes on as scheduled – a jubilant celebration of Caribbean culture and life.

“The Notting Hill Festival has always been a highlight of my summer, and because each year offers a completely different experience, it never gets tired.” Nadine Persaud, deputy director of Photoworks, a photography organization based in London, and UKBFTOG The photographer has attended the carnival since she was a teenager. “When I was younger, it was purely an opportunity to party to my heart’s content, but as I’ve grown older and become a parent, attendance has evolved into something more subtle. 2019 was a year. It’s amazing with great weather and it’s strange to think that no one there had any idea that a pandemic would bring it to a halt for two years. To be a big party much loved, but it has much deeper meaning for the local community in West London as well as for the British Black and Caribbean communities in the UK, so 2022 cannot come Soon. “

We look back over 5 decades with joy.