2017 | King David Oluwale

The Leeds West Indian Carnival

The Leeds West Indian Carnival is one of the longest running in Europe and was the first street carnival in Britain to be organised by British Caribbeans.

The carnival was the idea of Arthur France. After moving to Britain from Saint Kitts-Nevis in 1957 he wanted to create an event to celebrate Caribbean culture. He saw carnival as a chance for Leeds’s Caribbean communities to celebrate their heritage and come together through song and dance. France believed it would show the journey of emancipation and just how far the black community had come (Leeds West Indian Carnival, n.d.).

The history of carnival in the Caribbean is much longer. Masquerade was first introduced into Trinidadian culture by French colonisers. Masked balls and parades evolved in this new setting, with the ‘world turned upside down’ element of carnival allowing the subversion of the established order (Zobel Marshall, Farrar, and Farrar, 2018).

Carnivals became more than masking and dressing up. They were a way of making political and cultural messages, as well as a means to bring communities together in both their similarities and differences. These elements of carnival were transferred to Leeds by Arthur France and the rest of the carnival committee.

A smiling David Oluwale

The Leeds West Indian Carnival celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2017. As part of the parade, the Harrison Bundey Mama Dread Masqueraders (HBMDM) partnered with the David Oluwale Memorial Association (DOMA) to create a masquerade that used David Oluwale’s story to make a broader point about migration.

The HBMDM troupe have a history of using carnival to make political statements. In 2017, they were inspired by the movement of refugees and migrants across the Mediterranean and decided to adapt the Trinidadian Patois statement ‘All Ah We Are One’ into ‘All Ah We Are Migrants’. The troupe used David Oluwale’s story to show that Leeds had its own dark history connected to migration (Zobel Marshall, Farrar, and Farrar, 2018).

Working with DOMA, they decided to turn David Oluwale into a Carnival King. They enlisted the artists Alan Pergusey, Jane Storr and Hughbon Condor to create a papier-mâché head representing David Oluwale. Because the only known photo of Oluwale is his mugshot, the artists reimagined a younger David Oluwale with a smile instead of a bruised lip (Baldwin, 2019).

King David’s head was followed by around a hundred masqueraders representing different migration stories. Some were dressed as Hibiscus flowers to represent joy. Simon Namsoo, a Trinidadian-British member of HBMDM, carried the head on his shoulders and had large sheets of chiffon floating from his waist, representing the water that migrants to Britain must cross (Zobel Marshall, Farrar, and Farrar, 2018). To raise awareness of David Oluwale’s story, the HBMDM troupe handed out leaflets that summarised his life and struggles. The presence of the David Oluwale masquerade was powerful. It represented how, almost fifty years after his death, his struggles remained relevant. Like Arthur France, David Oluwale wanted respect – but (unlike Arthur France) he did not receive this in life or death.

"We Are All Migrants"

As well as producing the King David Oluwale masquerade, the HBMDM troupe and DOMA worked with the documentary filmmaker Rowenna Baldwin to record the process. The resulting short film, called We Are All Migrants, was produced by the Northern Film School and won the ‘Best Short Film’ award at the first Hebden Bridge Film Festival in 2019.