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Notting Hill Carnival
Notting Hill Carnival is an annual
event which since 1966 has taken
place on the streets of Notting
Hill, Royal Borough of Kensington
and Chelsea , London, UK each
August, over two days (the August
bank holiday Monday and the day
beforehand). It is led by members of
the Trinidad and Tobago (Trini)
Caribbean population, many of whom
have lived in the area since the
1950s. The carnival has attracted up
to 2 million people in the past,
making it the second largest street
festival in the world after the
Trinidad and Tobago Carnival held in
that country
The
roots of Carnival come from two
separate but connected strands.
Carnival began in January 1959 in St
Pancras Town Hall as a response to
the depressing state of race
relations at the time; the UK's
first widespread racial attacks (the
Notting Hill race riots) had
occurred the previous year. This
carnival organised by Claudia Jones
(a "Trini") who is widely recognised
as 'the Mother of Notting Hill
Carnival', was a huge success,
despite being held indoors. The
London Free School inspired festival
was the first organised outside
event in August 1966. The prime
mover was Rhaune Laslett, who was
not aware of the indoor events when
she first raised the idea. This was
a more diverse Notting Hill event to
promote cultural unity but
overlapping with earlier events by
the involvement of Russ Henderson's
steel band who had played at the
earlier Claudia Jones events.
By
1976, the event had become
definitely Caribbean in flavour,
with around 150,000 people
attending. However, in that year and
several subsequent years, Carnival
was marred by riots, in which
predominantly Caribbean youths
fought with police a target
due to the continuous harassment the
population felt they were under.
During this period, there was
considerable coverage of the
disorder in the press, which some
felt took an unfairly negative and
one-sided view of Carnival. For a
while it looked as if the event
would be banned. Prince Charles was
one of the few establishment figures
who supported the event.
In
recent years, the event has been
much freer from serious trouble and
is generally viewed very positively
by the authorities as a dynamic
celebration of London's
multi-cultural diversity, though
dominated by the Caribbean culture
in the best traditions of Rio.
However, there has been controversy
over the public safety aspects of
holding such a well-attended event
in narrow streets in a small area of
London.
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