New York City’s annual West Indian Day Parade is expected to return to Brooklyn on Labor Day, bringing Caribbean music, costumes, food and culture to Eastern Parkway.
The main celebration is set for Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. It is the finale of several days of Carnival Week events hosted by the West Indian American Day Carnival Association.
The parade traditionally travels along Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, through Crown Heights and toward Grand Army Plaza.
The celebration’s roots stretch back to the 1930s, when Jessie Wardell and friends held Caribbean Carnival costume parties in Harlem.
The first known street activity followed in the 1940s. The celebration moved to Brooklyn in the 1960s, when Trinidadian immigrant Rufus Goring brought Carnival to the borough, according to WIADCA.
The organization was later led for decades by Carlos Lezama, who became president in 1967.
