One of the biggest celebrations of Caribbean culture in the world will see thousands of people walk through Brooklyn.
One of the biggest festivals of Caribbean culture in the world will begin on Monday with thousands of participants dancing and marching through Brooklyn in New York City's West Indian American Day Parade. Now in its 57th year, the Labor Day celebration transforms the Eastern Parkway of the borough into a kaleidoscope of vibrant flags and feather-covered costumes as participants parade down the thoroughfare accompanied by floats piled high with speakers blasting reggae and soca music. Huge crowds frequently line the almost 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) path that spans from Crown Heights to the Brooklyn Museum for the march. Local politicians, many of whom are descended from West Indians or represent the city's sizable Caribbean population , also frequently travel there. The event's origins, according to the organizers, are in more conventionally timed pre-Lent Carnival celebrations that were initiated in Manhattan some 100 years ago by a Trinidadian immigrant. The 1940s saw...