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Carnival celebrates 60 years of race legislation
A carnival has brought generations together to celebrate the 60th anniversary of legislation against racial discrimination.
Celebrating African and Caribbean culture, St Pauls Carnival returned to Bristol as a scaled down event on Saturday after organisers "reflected on finances", director Ricardo Sharry said.
Elders were entertained at a brunch, children sang and danced, and poems were performed.
The theme was "Roots of Resilience" to commemorate the passing of The Race Relations Act 1965, which was introduced two years after the Bristol Bus Boycott and outlawed discrimination in public places.
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"The carnival really epitomises that spirit - people pop up and they share their music and it covers the whole African and Caribbean diaspora so it's really special." Mr Sharry said.
He said he hoped the carnival would be "bigger and better next year" after a smaller event, Back A Yard, was deemed to be "more appropriate" this year.
Mr Sharry said: "What's quite nice is we've got the older generation, we've got the younger generation, and then the middle generation - people come to the streets and enjoy the carnival."
"It's a really nice balance of 'for the community' and 'supported by the community'."
Antonette, a poet, said she found writing about her own experiences "cathartic" and was pleased to read her work at the event.
"Today was an excellent opportunity for me to perform some of the poems I have written in the past, related to the Windrush generation," she said.
Antonette read poems about her arrival in England from Barbados and the prejudice she faced, as well as her experience of racial and verbal abuse in schools, drawing on what her son had been through.
"It was lovely to express myself and I saw a lot of nodding in the audience," she said.
"I haven't been upset by all the things that happened to me. I fought back."
Antonette said St Pauls Carnival brought "different people together".
"It's a celebratory event and especially for elders like myself... it was great," she said.
"It's a community thing and it's lovely. I hope it will go on forever."
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