By Mell P
Long before Caribbean culture commanded the streets of Brooklyn each Labor Day weekend, Caribbean immigrants in New York were doing the quieter work of building the political, civic and cultural infrastructure that would allow their communities to be seen and heard.
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For Trinidad-born activist Yvette Rennie, that work has stretched across decades, from the Civil Rights era and student activism to voter registration, Trinidad and Tobago advocacy and the fight to protect J’Ouvert as an authentic expression of Caribbean culture.
Her story begins in Mt. Hope, Trinidad, in a politically engaged family where public affairs were part of the environment around her. When she migrated to the United States in the 1960s, she arrived during one of the most consequential periods in modern American history.
She attended high school in Washington, D.C., before enrolling at Howard University in 1967, entering a city confronting racial inequality, political upheaval and the final years of the Civil Rights Movement. Rather than observe from the sidelines, Rennie became involved. She participated in student government and became associated with the Black Panther movement in Washington, D.C. It was an era that sharpened her understanding of Black political power and the necessity of communities organizing on their own behalf.
Those lessons would follow her to New York.
Finding Caribbean Solidarity in Brooklyn
Rennie eventually moved to New York to continue her education, attending community college before transferring to Brooklyn College.
There, another dimension of her political consciousness emerged.
Caribbean students from across the region were beginning to find one another, recognizing that despite coming from different islands, they shared histories and increasingly shared struggles in America.
Through student government, Rennie worked alongside activists and intellectuals including Panama-born Dr. Carlos Russell, who would go on to establish Black Solidarity Day.
The political issues surrounding them extended well beyond Brooklyn. Students organized around apartheid in South Africa, Nelson Mandela and the death of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. For Rennie, the experience reinforced an idea that would shape much of her subsequent work: Caribbean identity and Black political consciousness did not have to exist separately.
There was power in both.
Building Trinidad and Tobago’s Presence in New York
By the 1980s, Rennie had joined Hawks International, one of the leading Trinidad and Tobago organizations in New York.
The organization became an important vehicle for maintaining Trinidadian culture in the diaspora while advocating on issues affecting nationals abroad.
Hawks International was active in protecting and strengthening the Caribbean Carnival celebrations on Eastern Parkway and, according to Rennie, also played an important advocacy role in the movement that eventually allowed Trinidad and Tobago nationals to hold dual citizenship.
The work represented something larger than nostalgia for home. Immigrants were establishing themselves permanently in the United States while demanding that their connection to Trinidad and Tobago remain intact.
Rennie’s son, Kwame would eventually join that tradition of service, working alongside her on numerous community initiatives.
Turning Caribbean Numbers Into Political Power
Culture, however, was only one part of the equation.
Rennie also understood that a growing Caribbean population needed political influence. Through her work with civic organizations in New York, she became involved in redistricting efforts aimed at ensuring communities could elect representatives who understood them. Voter registration and education became central to the mission.
The effort ultimately registered more than 50,000 new voters, according to Rennie, with Kwame personally registering more than 5,000. Their work concentrated initially in under-served Brooklyn neighborhoods before expanding into East New York, Flatbush and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
The objective was not simply to add names to voter rolls. It was to teach residents that political participation affected who represented them, where district boundaries were drawn and who made decisions about their neighborhoods.
Rennie’s message remains the same today: attend community board meetings, become district leaders, serve on committees and pay attention to judicial elections.
Political power, she argues, requires participation long after Election Day.
Protecting J’Ouvert
Eventually, Rennie’s political organizing, Trinidadian cultural advocacy and community work converged in another institution: J’Ouvert City International.
The growth of J’Ouvert in Brooklyn was, in part, a response to changes taking place around the larger Eastern Parkway Carnival.
As amplified DJ music became increasingly dominant, steelbands needed a space where the traditional sound and ritual of J’Ouvert could exist on their own terms.
The answer was to create a dedicated venue for the steelband.
What emerged developed its own identity and energy.
She says “Preserving J’Ouvert means protecting more than an event. It means maintaining a cultural practice connected to Trinidad and Tobago’s history, emancipation traditions and African heritage.”
The organization has now existed for more than 35 years and operates as a nonprofit, but protecting that tradition has not always been easy.
Following serious challenges surrounding J’Ouvert in 2016, organizers, clergy, elected officials and community leaders worked to develop stronger infrastructure around the celebration. Rennie credits city leadership, including then-Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, as well as a coalition of clergy, with helping safeguard both the community and the cultural expression.
For Rennie, however, an unresolved question remains.
Who Benefits From Caribbean Culture?
Brooklyn’s Caribbean celebrations generate enormous visibility and economic activity, but Rennie believes Caribbean people have yet to receive their fair share of the economic benefits generated by their own culture.
It is a question she believes the next generation must confront.
The pioneers, including figures he recalls such as Carlos Lezama, Ronnie Babb, Dr. Stanislaus, Roy Hastick, and Karl and Faye Rodney, did the difficult work of establishing organizations, protecting cultural spaces and ensuring Caribbean people had a public presence in New York.
The next phase, Rennie believes, requires looking at that legacy through an economic lens.
It is no longer enough to preserve the culture. Caribbean communities must think about ownership, business development and how the economic value created by Carnival, J’Ouvert and other cultural institutions circulates back into the communities responsible for them.
That may be one of the most important lessons from her generation.
A Legacy of Participation
Rennie’s own family reflects the emphasis on achievement and public engagement that shaped her life. Her siblings pursued distinguished professional and intellectual paths, including a sister who became a petroleum engineer and brothers Dr.
Kenrick Rennie, and writer and activist Bukka Rennie.
Her own contribution has unfolded differently—across classrooms, political campaigns, community organizations, voter-registration drives and the predawn streets of Brooklyn where steelpan still announces J’Ouvert.
Through it all runs a consistent philosophy: communities cannot wait for someone else to give them influence. They have to organize for it.
The journey that began in Mt. Hope and moved through Washington, D.C., Howard University and eventually Brooklyn mirrors a broader Caribbean-American story.
One generation migrated. Then it organized. It built institutions. Registered voters. Fought for representation. Protected Carnival. Preserved steelpan. Created spaces for Caribbean culture to survive thousands of miles from home.
Now Rennie believes another generation must take the foundation it inherited and go further.
The question is no longer whether Caribbean culture belongs in New York. Decades of work have already answered that.
The challenge now is ensuring that Caribbean people possess the political and economic power to match the cultural influence they helped create.
