Don’t Let Boston’s Caribbean Carnival Fade Away
Written by b87fm on 08/18/2025
EDITORIAL
Don’t Let Boston’s Caribbean Carnival Fade Away
Carnival matters. It is more than a parade—it is history, resilience, and identity. It is a living connection to the struggles and triumphs of Caribbean people, and it reminds Boston that Black culture is not peripheral; it is central to the city’s story.
By Notorious VOG | August 18, 2025, 9:00 a.m.
Every August, Boston’s Caribbean Carnival bursts onto the streets with music, dance, and culture that have shaped the city for generations. But instead of celebrating it as the treasure it is, city officials and institutions have spent years cutting it down.
This year, like in years past, there are calls to ban trucks and restrict music. Safety is often the justification—pointing to incidents like the 2023 shooting that injured eight people near the festival and another shooting at the Dominican Festival in 2024. But violence is not unique to Carnival. St. Patrick’s Day has faced its share of disturbances, yet no one is calling for silencing the bagpipes or curbing the parade.
The difference comes down to power. Boston’s Irish community has political champions. Boston’s Black Caribbean community does not.
Carnival’s roots run deep. They stretch back centuries to the days of slavery, when enslaved Africans in the Caribbean reimagined European pre-Lenten festivals as their own celebrations of freedom, resistance, and joy. When Caribbean immigrants brought Carnival to Boston, they carried that history with them and built one of the largest Black cultural events in New England.
But over the past two decades, Carnival has been systematically weakened. The first major blow came when trucks and revelers were banned from entering Franklin Park, forcing the parade to end abruptly on American Legion Highway. That move stripped the event of its heart. Since then, repeated route changes, heavy-handed policing, and noise crackdowns have chipped away at its vibrancy.
What was once one of the largest street carnivals in America is now struggling to survive.
Internal issues have made things worse. Disorganization and fractured leadership within the Carnival association have left the event vulnerable. Reliance on city and state funding gives outsiders disproportionate control. Meanwhile, the community itself has splintered—the Haitian community now hosts its own parade, while Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Bajans, and others are left fending for themselves.
The result is a Carnival that feels managed rather than celebrated.
But Carnival matters. It is more than a parade—it is history, resilience, and identity. It is a living connection to the struggles and triumphs of Caribbean people, and it reminds Boston that Black culture is not peripheral; it is central to the city’s story.
The solution is not to ban trucks, restrict music, or over-police the event. The solution is reform and investment. The Carnival association must be restructured with stronger, more accountable leadership. City and state officials must treat Carnival as the cultural institution it is. If Boston can invest in its museums, theaters, and heritage festivals, it can invest in Carnival—not out of charity, but out of recognition that it is part of the city’s cultural DNA.
To let Carnival wither would be to erase a piece of Boston’s soul. If this city truly values diversity, then it must protect Carnival, not police it into extinction.
When the drums go silent, Boston loses more than a parade. It loses a living reminder of freedom itself.
About VOG: Paul “Notorious VOG” Parara is host of Notorious In The Morning on B87FM.com and TheVOGPodcast. Known for his unapologetic voice on issues of race, politics, and culture, VOG has been a leading commentator in Boston’s media landscape for decades.
