THE D.C. CARIBBEAN CARNIVAL, INC., is preparing for the 8th Annual Caribbean Carnival Extravaganza, which will wind down Georgia Avenue in the summer of 2000.

The festivities, dubbed “Capital Carnival 2000”, will feature a parade on Saturday, June 24, 2000.  It will proceed along a three-mile stretch of Georgia Avenue, a heavily trafficked business corridor.  The Carnival Parade will begin at 12:00 noon, at Missouri Avenue, NW and end at Banneker Recreation Center at Barry Place (across the street from the Howard University campus). On Sunday June 25, 2000, there will be a free outdoor concert, which will start at 2:00p.m. and feature local and international artists, steelbands, and calypso.  Capital Carnival 2000 will unveil an expanded schedule of activities, starting with a Cultural show beginning at 2:00p.m. on Sunday, June 18 at the parking lot of the CrossRoads Restaurant and a Calypso Concert in honor of the “Grandmaster of Calypso” Aldwyn Roberts, a.k.a. the Lord Kitchener, who died recently in Trinidad and Tobago.  This Concert will be held on Thursday June 22, 2000 and will feature 3 Canal, David Rudder and the “Calypso King of the World”- The Mighty Sparrow.

Vendors will provide a wide sampling of Caribbean cuisine and beverages for participants to choose from in the park.   Arts and crafts vendors providing a wide array of items at reasonable prices.

Carnival is about themes, creations, colors, costumes, music and fine food from across the Caribbean.  In 1999, the D.C. Carnival Parade featured 25 masquerade groups with about 3,000 masqueraders.  Children and adults of all ages wore colorful costumes and represented in riotous colors, varied themes.  Steel bands, live calypso/soca music, DJs, live Haitian music, and African drummers provided the musical accompaniment.

More than 300,000 spectators lined the route for the parade, which lasted 6 hours.  The D.C. Caribbean Carnival is a colorful, educational and cultural event, which showcases the diversity of the English, Spanish, and French Caribbean and Brazilian cultures in the Metropolitan area.  The event also attracts people of all ages and Africans from the Diaspora in the United States and around the world, as well as revelers and spectators from all ethnic groups.   The event receives increasingly wide media coverage from various national and local media organizations.

In addition to politicians and diplomats, the paraders came from Toronto, Jamaica, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami, and from other parts of the United States and the world.

Over the years we have received sponsorships from corporations and donations from individuals. The D.C. Caribbean Carnival a non-profit 501C(3) Organization, incorporated and based in the District of Columbia, relies on sponsors for donations to help defray the cost of this extravaganza.  All donations are tax deductible.

WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING LOTS OF SMILING FACES, DANCING FEET AND BRIGHT AND COLOURFUL COSTUMES