News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Aug. 29, 2025: The biggest carnival in North America – the West Indian American Day Carnival – is back in Brooklyn this Labor Day weekend, set to transform the borough into a kaleidoscope of Caribbean culture, music, and pride.

FLASHBACK – People wearing costumes take part in the Labor Day Parade, also known as West Indian Carnival, an annual celebration held on American Labor Day (the first Monday in September) in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York, United States on September 5, 2022. The carnival attracts thousands of participants with colorful costumes accompanied with native music. (Photo by Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The Main Parade

On Labor Day Monday, thousands are expected to flood Eastern Parkway for the 58th Annual West Indian American Day Parade & Carnival, themed “Vive Le Carnivale.” The parade will officially step off at 11 a.m. from Eastern Parkway and Rochester Avenue, marching all the way to Grand Army Plaza, and is expected to wrap up around 6 p.m.

Before the main event, the more traditional mas event, J’Ouvert, kicks off at 6 a.m. Monday, running until 11 a.m. with early spectator access opening at 2 a.m. Revelers will take over sections of Empire Boulevard and Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights, carrying forward the deep-rooted Caribbean tradition of pre-dawn festivities.

A New York cop with carnival revelers on Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2015.

Weekend of Events

The Carnival weekend is packed with music, culture, and community pride:

Friday, Aug. 29: Soca heavyweights Kes the Band, Bunji Garlin, and Fay-Ann Lyons headline the Soca Festival at the Brooklyn Museum. Event link

Saturday, Aug. 30:

Youth Fest Info

Junior Carnival & Parade Tickets, featuring young masqueraders along President Street and Franklin Avenue.

Panorama 2025 at the Brooklyn Museum, where steel pan orchestras compete in one of the most anticipated showcases of the year. Event link

Sunday, Aug. 31: The Ultimate Fete takes over Brooklyn, celebrating rum, music, and Caribbean unity. Event link

Street Closures & Security

Marchers are covered in motor oil, paint and chalk as they celebrate J’Ouvert in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn on September 02, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)

The NYPD has announced widespread street closures beginning Sunday night through Monday evening. Key closures include:

Flatbush Avenue, Empire Boulevard, Nostrand Avenue, and sections of Eastern Parkway.

On parade day, additional closures roll out from Utica Avenue to Grand Army Plaza starting at 10:30 a.m.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch emphasized that this will be “the largest deployment of the year — larger than New Year’s Eve in Times Square or July Fourth.” Thousands of officers, along with helicopters and drones, will monitor the event to ensure safety.

Drivers are strongly urged to use public transportation as all northbound and southbound streets feeding into Eastern Parkway will be closed.

A full list of street closures is available via the NYC Department of Transportation.

ABOUT CARIBBEAN AMERICANS IN THE USA

The demographic footprint of Caribbean immigrants or West Indians in the United States remains undeniable. Caribbean immigrant Alexander Hamilton, born in Charlestown, Saint Kitts and Nevis, was a U.S. Founding Father and the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury. A key architect of America’s financial system, Hamilton served under President George Washington from 1789 to 1795. He also co-founded the Federalist Party and the African Free School, and played a pivotal role in shaping the early United States. Hamilton was married to Elizabeth Schuyler and was tragically killed in a duel in 1804. His legacy as a Caribbean-born visionary and American statesman endures.

Meanwhile, according to 2020 U.S. Census data – the first decennial survey to allow respondents to write in their Caribbean ancestry – some 4.6 million people in the U.S. identified as having roots in the Caribbean. The majority hailed from three nations: Jamaica (1,047,117), Haiti (1,032,747), and Trinidad and Tobago (194,364).

Geographically, Caribbean Americans are most heavily concentrated in Florida (30%), New York (25%), and New Jersey (6%). The data also show that most Caribbean Americans fall within the 45–64 age range, reflecting a well-established and mature population.

Caribbean presence in the U.S. dates back centuries. Historians like Jennifer Faith Gray of the Scottish Centre for Global History note that enslaved Africans were brought from the Caribbean to the U.S. as early as the 1660s, with one-third to half of enslaved persons in the Carolinas during the colonial era coming directly from the Caribbean. Harvard University, among others, profited from Caribbean slave labor through financial instruments and loans.

One of the most notable acts of Caribbean American resistance in U.S. history came in 1822, when Denmark Vesey, a Caribbean-born former slave, led a planned slave revolt in Charleston, South Carolina – one of the largest of its time.