ROGERS PARK — The first Howard Street Carnaval will celebrate the local African and Caribbean diaspora with a vibrant parade, live music and vendors.
The inaugural African Caribbean Diaspora Howard Street Carnaval starts 11 a.m. Saturday. A parade will kick off the free event, followed by a festival in a local park, according to organizers with A Just Harvest, a Rogers Park food insecurity and social justice nonprofit.
The parade begins 11 a.m. at Triangle Park, 1750 W. Juneway Terrace, before heading south along Paulina Street and east on Howard Street to Willye B. White Park, 1610 W. Howard St., where the rest of the festivities will take place throughout the afternoon.
The festival is intended to “celebrate the gifts and presence” of African and Caribbean people in Rogers Park and throughout Chicago, said the Rev. Marilyn Pagán-Banks, executive director of A Just Harvest.
“They’ve been here for a very long time and they just add to the breadth and beauty and deliciousness of our community,” Pagán-Banks said. “There’s a lot of displacement happening, so this is a way to say, ‘We’re here.’”
The parade is in homage to the carnivals and celebrations held in Caribbean countries that are marked by colorful, bejeweled costumes live music. Attendees are encouraged to dress up, and a custom contest will award $500 to the winner.
After the parade, there will be dancing, spoken word and musical performances, plus local vendors serving jerk chicken, goat curry, jollof rice and sweet plantain dishes.
Local organizations will be tabling at the event, offering a variety of services, including free health screenings. There will also be a tent where visitors can make colorful masks to wear throughout the celebration.
Pagán-Banks hopes the celebration will help people make connections within the community and uplift the many African and Caribbean businesses and artists in the city and especially on the Far North Side. Neighborhoods including Uptown, Edgewater and Rogers Park have have long been welcoming places to African and Caribbean immigrants, although gentrification has impacted those communities’ ability to stay in the area.
“It’s really a way for us to bring the Black and Brown community together under our common ancestry,” Pagán-Banks “It’s especially important since we’re all so divided with everything that’s happening with the migrants, and that narrative of pitting Black and Brown people against each other, when most of us come from the same heritage.
“We ought to celebrate that and build solidarity around that. So this is a way to begin to say that we’re not all the same, but we have some common ancestry, and we have collective joy and economic power that we can build by coming together.”
For more information about the Howard Street Carnaval, visit its website.
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