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Bristol’s annual celebration of African and Caribbean culture, St Pauls Carnival, returns this summer to the city’s streets under the theme of Learning from Legends.
The 2023 celebration will commence with a series of fringe events from 22 June, marking the Windrush 75th Anniversary, and will culminate in the iconic day-long traditional Caribbean street carnival on Saturday 1 July.
This year will mark the first full carnival day since 2019, which will see over 100,000 people celebrate in the heart of Bristol’s St Pauls neighbourhood.
The Learning from Legends theme will be particularly poignant to Bristol’s African Caribbean community following the passing on 3 August last year of Bristol Bus Boycott activist and Carnival forefather, Roy Hackett MBE.
2023 marks 60 years since Bristol’s Bus Boycott when Roy spearheaded a months’ long boycott of the Bristol Omnibus Company challenging its systemic racial discrimination in recruitment. His actions and those of other fellow Bristolians paved the way for the Race Relations Act 1965. The University of Bristol University awarded Roy a doctorate in science at his funeral.
This year also sees the 75th anniversary of HMT Empire Windrush arriving in Britain on 22 June 1948. This important historic event will be marked in the traditional fringe events in the run up to the 1 July and on the day itself.
