The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual Caribbean festival event that has taken place in London since 1966 on the streets of the Notting Hill area of Kensington, each August over two days (the August bank holiday Monday and the preceding Sunday).
It is led by members of the British Caribbean community, and attracts around two and a half million people annually, making it one of the world's largest street festivals, and a significant event in British African Caribbean and British Indo-Caribbean culture. In 2006, the UK public voted it onto a list of icons of England.
Kelso Cochrane was a 32 year old, Antiguan born carpenter, and aspiring lawyer, living in Notting Hill at a time when racial tensions were high. He died after a racially motivated attack on Southam Street (off Golborne Road) Notting Hill on May 17th 1959 (today a blue plaque marks the spot). His murder had a huge impact on race relations. Reportedly, there were over 1,200 attendees at his funeral. Many of whom came to demonstrate solidarity and a show of defiance against racism locally. Activism was stepped up to Whitehall when it was felt the investigation into the murder was complacent, and allegations of a police cover up began to circulate (the case is unsolved to date). Rab Butler, the then Home Secretary, made an appeal for witnesses in Parliament and went on to launch a public inquiry into race relations. Much activity to ease racial tension within the Notting Hill area preceded Cochrane's murder, leading to a children's street fayre organised my local resident and community activist, Rhaune Laslett. Laslett is reported to have said of her community and her event "We felt that although West Indians, Africans, Irish and many others nationalities all live in a very congested area, there is very little communication between us. If we can infect them with a desire to participate, then this can only have good results." It was this small community children’s street fayre back in the mid 60s that would morph into what we now know as Notting Hill Carnival.
The roots of the Notting Hill Carnival that took shape in the mid-1960s had two separate but connected strands. A "Caribbean Carnival" was held on 30 January 1959 in St Pancras Town Hall as a response to the problematic state of race relations at the time; the UK's first widespread racial attacks, the Notting Hill race riots in which 108 people were charged, had occurred the previous year. The 1959 event, held indoors and televised by the BBC, was organised by the Trinidadian journalist and activist Claudia Jones (often described as "the mother of the Notting Hill Carnival") in her capacity as editor of influential black newspaper The West Indian Gazette, and directed by Edric Connor; showcasing elements of a Caribbean carnival in a cabaret style, it featured among other things the Mighty Terror singing the calypso "Carnival at St Pancras", The Southlanders, Cleo Laine, the Trinidad All Stars and Hi-fi steel bands dance troupe, finishing with a Caribbean Carnival Queen beauty contest and a Grand Finale Jump-Up by West Indians who attended the event.
Another important strand was the "hippie" London Free School-inspired festival in Notting Hill that became 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 festival was a more diverse Notting Hill event to promote cultural unity. A street party for neighbourhood children turned into a carnival procession when Russell Henderson's steel band (who had played at the earlier Claudia Jones events) went on a walkabout. By 1970, "the Notting Hill Carnival consisted of 2 music bands, the Russell Henderson Combo and Selwyn Baptiste's Notting Hill Adventure Playground Steelband and 500 dancing spectators.
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