Scenes From J’Ouvert and The 2025 West Indian Day Parade

Hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of central Brooklyn on Monday for J’Ouvert and the West Indian Parade, the annual dawn-to-dusk celebration of our huge Caribbean-American community. And though, according to reports, a burst of gun violence at the very end of the day left six people injured, for more than twelve hours across a huge swath of the borough (the party extends for many blocks outside of the official routes), the vibe was absolutely jubilant.

The party begins before the sun comes up, on Flatbush Avenue and Empire Boulevard, with J’Ouvert, which translates roughly as “break of day,” and has its roots in the emancipation of enslaved people in the Caribbean. The festivities here are dominated by folkloric costumes—especially of the Jab Molassie character, with its devil horns and chains—and the ritualistic splattering and smearing of bodies with paint and motor oil.

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

“J’Ouvert is all about family and partying and feeling the essence of Caribbean culture,” Tian Swane told Brooklyn Magazine. “We stay up all night, watch the sunrise, and celebrate Carnival.”

At around 11:00 a.m., the massive, hours-long West Indian Parade begins on Eastern Parkway and Buffalo Avenue, as wave after wave of corporate-sponsored crews, labor unions, church groups, and countless other organizations—almost always accompanied by an enormous sound system—dance, strut, drink, and scream their way down to Grand Army Plaza.

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

Democratic NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (Photo by Scott Lynch)

And because this is an election year, just about every politician in the city made an appearance yesterday, including all of the mayoral candidates. Contenders Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Eric Adams, and Curtis Sliwa all received markedly muted responses from the crowd during the two blocks or so that I followed them. Frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, on the other hand, was greeted like a rockstar wherever he went, and he was only too happy to take selfies and otherwise engage with his supporters.

Haitian chicken stew with spicy pikliz (Photo by Scott Lynch)

An important part of enjoying your Labor Day out here on the Parkway is to eat as much food as possible. Quite fortunately, every year hundreds of vendors set up their smokers and grills all along the route and, almost literally, every single one of them is extremely good. Seriously, don’t overthink this. Just get on line anywhere and you will be served an incredible plate of food. I had Haitian chicken stew with loads of spicy pikliz (it’s like amped-up slaw) at the Chef Meme tent in the early afternoon, and Jamaican jerk pork from an outfit called Dario’s about five hours later, and both were perfect.

See some more scenes from the parades below.