“Preserve our culture!” shouted Cambridge Carnival supporters as they marched down Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge’s Central Square this evening. “Keep our carnival!”
The protest was in response to the Aug. 29 announcement that the spectacular annual Caribbean parade and festival planned for Sept. 8 was being canceled due to fears of violence.
“There have been increasing safety concerns associated with this year’s event due in part to the gun violence that occurred last weekend in the immediate vicinity of Boston’s Caribbean Carnival Parade,” Cambridge Carnival International, which organizes the celebration, wrote on the event Facebook page on Aug. 29.
A joint statement from city government leaders and the organization, headed by Nicola A. Williams, who is currently running for Cambridge City Council, said: “Based on the recommendation of Cambridge Police Commissioner Branville G. Bard, Jr., and the Cambridge Carnival Committee, the City Manager Louis A. DePasquale have agreed to cancel this year’s Cambridge Carnival.”
Tonight, the Cambridge Carnival Committee gathered supporters for a “Unity Rally” on the steps of Cambridge City Hall, followed by “March for Peace” down Massachusetts Avenue to Main Street and Union Baptist Church, for a community forum.
By the time marchers arrived at Union Baptist Church on Main Street, they’d been drenched by a downpour. To a soggy audience of about 80 people—including Bard and Cambridge City Councilor Quinton Zondervan—Williams announced what the Carnival Committee wants from the city.
She called for a scaled-back Carnival to be held in a place like University Park on Sept. 28 or 29. “Provide assurances that the city will employ the necessary resources and do everything in its power to ensure that the Carnival is going to be safe this year, and in the future,” she said. The city, she said, should reimburse the Carnival funds lost due to cancellations. The city should commit to holding the Cambridge Carnival parade and festival in 2020. And she called on the city to seek out lessons from Boston’s July 4th celebrations and other Caribbean Carnivals in Boston, New York, Trinidad and London.
“Carnival is an expression of our freedom,” Williams said. “It’s about our history. It’s about our culture. It’s about where we came from. It’s also about where we’re going. … We belong here and we’re not going anywhere.”
The evening’s events began with a rally on the front steps of Cambridge City Hall. “I know this was really disappointing to this community,” Cambridge Mayor Marc McGovern said. “I’m sorry for that. … We’re going to figure out a resolution not just for this year, but moving forward.”
Cambridge City Manager Louis A. DePasquale appeared for a time at the top of the City Hall stairs, behind the speakers, but did not speak publicly at the rally.
“There’s never been a carnival cancelled anywhere,” Ken Reeves, a former mayor of Cambridge and currently president of the Cambridge branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, told the crowd. “…We scratch our heads.”
“Before this carnival there wasn’t any event in Cambridge that celebrated black people, none,” Reeves said.
Cambridge City Councilor Quinton Zondervan said he was committed to working with Cambridge police and city officials to make sure “that it’s never cancelled again.”
“This is an opportunity to address an issue that’s affecting not only Cambridge but the whole United States: gun violence,” Ulric Johnson of Tempo International Rhythm Section, a Dorchester steel band that planned to perform at the carnival, said at the start of the community forum at Union Baptist Church. “If there’s a threat to an event, you do what you can to protect the lives at the event. You don’t cancel the event.”
Previously:
Aug. 30: Cambridge Carnival Canceled Over Fears Of Gun Violence, Organizers Say
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