St. Paul's Carnival is an annual Caribbean Carnival held, usually on the first Saturday of July, in St. Paul's, Bristol, England. The celebration began in 1968[1] as the St. Paul's Festival, in order to improve relationships between the European, African, Caribbean, and Asian inhabitants of the area.
| St Pauls Carnival | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Reggae, World music, Folk music, Hip hop, Poetry, Dub, Visual arts |
| Dates | First Saturday of July |
| Location(s) | St Pauls, Bristol, United Kingdom |
| Years active | since 1968 |
| Website | St Pauls Carnival |
Called the St. Paul's Carnival since 1991,[2] the event includes a masquerade procession with ornate and colourful costumes and floats from local schools and cultural associations, a stage for professional performers, sound systems in neighbouring streets and a range of stalls selling food from a wide range of cultures. In the preceding period, Mas camps create costumes for the parade and there is a week of cultural events in the days before carnival.[3]
History
editThe carnival started in 1968[1] as a multi-cultural event. The initial organisers were the St. Paul's and Environs Consultative Committee and the West Indian Development Association, aided by the vicar of St. Agnes Church and Carmen Beckford, Bristol's first community development worker. Local residents and activists wanted to bring together the European, African-Caribbean and Asian communities, and wanted to challenge negative stereotypes of the area. Originally it was a community event with local residents selling home-cooked food from their front gardens.[4][2]
Researcher Thomas Fleming said that "By the mid-1970s the event (now called the 'St. Paul's Festival') was indulging in an extravagant multiculturalism that celebrated in the juxtaposition of Latvian singers and Scottish dancers, steel bands and weightlifting competitions."[5]
This approach was to change over the next few years, particularly when the St. Paul's Festival Committee elected Trinidadian Francis Salandy as chair in July 1979. He took over from Alfredo Vasquez who had been one of the main organisers of the Festival for the previous two years; Vasquez was elected Secretary and for the next twenty years held key posts on the committee (Secretary and Treasurer).[6]
Salandy shifted the festival from multi-cultural celebrations of the various communities living in the St. Paul's neighbourhood to providing a platform for African and Caribbean artists. He insisted that the Black community had to be central to the decision-making because he did not want St. Paul's Festival to be "purely an exercise in community relations by White people who usually assumed a controlling role and decided what the Black community wanted".[5]
Salandy brought Trinidadian-style mas camp and procession to St. Paul's Festival but insisted on keeping up the tradition of booking steel bands. One of his first actions was to use his contacts with the organisers of the Notting Hill Carnival to invite London's Ebony Steelband to Bristol.[7]
Under Salandy's leadership, St. Paul's Festival remained a community event while becoming a consciousness-raising platform, reflecting messages of social justice, Black identity and liberation. This was reflected in the choice of films, talks and artists, as well as the Festival themes such as 'Survival' (1979), 'Resistance' (1980) and 'Not Guilty' (1981).[8]
In 1991 the event was renamed St. Paul's Afrikan-Caribbean Carnival, but it retains "an inclusive ethos and still attracts a wide range of Bristolian celebrants."[4]
The festival ran every year until 2002, when it was cancelled. Amirah Cole of the organising committee said: "We've worked hard to get funding for carnival projects and events, but it has been much more difficult to get support for training and extra staff. The fact the carnival happens each year is down to the hard work of a few association members who give their time freely throughout the year to plan and fund-raise. Carnival has grown so much that this is no longer sustainable."[9]
In 2006 the carnival was not held as the organising committee took a year out to re-structure and develop plans for a festival in 2007 that would be part of the commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807.[10] Carnival returned in 2007, improving its diversity and popularity, with a reported 70,000 persons attending in 2008.[11]
The organisation was a registered charity from 2010 to 2018, namely St. Pauls Afrikan Caribbean Carnival Limited. Its charitable objectives were 'to advance the education of the public in the appreciation and practice of Afrikan and Caribbean Arts and Culture'.[12]
The carnival was not held in 2015, 2016, or 2017 after the main funders – Bristol City Council and Arts Council England – lost confidence in the organisers.[13] The company and charity were de-registered in 2018 owing to lack of activity.[14][12]
A community interest company, St. Pauls Carnival (Bristol) C.I.C., was established in 2017.[15] The carnival took place again in 2018 with funding from Arts Council England, and support from Bristol City Council and Avon and Somerset Police.[13]
In 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, St. Paul's Carnival was held on-line.[16]
Archives
editRecords of the St. Paul's Afrikan-Caribbean Carnival and Arts Association, including administrative and financial records, marketing material, posters and photographs from the 1970s to 2007, are held at Bristol Archives (Ref. 43739) (online catalogue).
Notes
edit
- ^ a b "‘An Interview with Roy Hackett – St Pauls Carnival from 1968’", Bristol Archive Records, 10 April 2012.
- ^ a b "St Pauls Carnival". Bristol Museums. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
- ^ Nindi, Pax. "St Pauls Carnival 2008 - More than 40 years of Carnival in Bristol". www.stpaulscarnival.co.uk. Archived from the original on 13 July 2008. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
- ^ a b Dresser, Madge; Fleming, Peter (2007). Bristol: ethnic minorities and the city 1000-2001. Chichester: Phillimore and Company, Ltd. pp. 168–169. ISBN 978-1-86077-477-5.
- ^ a b Fleming, Thomas (1998). Re-articulating Tradition, Translating place: Collecting memories of Carnival in Leeds and Bristol (PDF). University of Sheffield: PhD, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield. pp. 115, 116.
- ^ "Records of the St Pauls Afrikan-Caribbean Carnival and Arts Association Limited (SPACCA), c. 1974-2007". Bristol Archives. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
- ^ "Records of the St Pauls Afrikan-Caribbean Carnival and Arts Association Limited (SPACCA), c. 1974-2007".
Ref: 43739/Adm/M/1; 43739/Adm/M/3; 43739/Mgt/Fe/1975/1; 43739/Mgt/Fe/1978/1; 43739/Mgt/Co/1; 43739/Adm/M/13
- ^ "The Peter Courtier Collection: Photographs: St Paul's Carnival". Retrieved 23 October 2020.
- ^ "Street carnival cancelled". BBC News. 7 March 2002. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
- ^ "City's carnival takes a year out". BBC News. 29 November 2005. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
- ^ "Thousands attend street carnival". BBC News. 5 July 2008. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
- ^ a b "St. Pauls Afrikan Caribbean Carnival Limited, registered charity no. 4045121". Charity Commission for England and Wales.
- ^ a b Murray, Robin (4 July 2018). "St Paul's Carnival 2018: Why has it not been on for the past three years?". Bristol Post. Retrieved 4 February 2019.
- ^ "ST PAUL'S AFRIKAN CARIBBEAN CARNIVAL LTD". Companies House. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
- ^ "ST PAULS CARNIVAL (BRISTOL) C.I.C." Companies House. Retrieved 4 February 2019.
- ^ "ST. PAULS DIGITAL CARNIVAL 2020 Saturday 4th July 2020". St. Pauls Carnival. Retrieved 23 October 2020.