Thomas Breen photos
Douglas Bethea and his daughter Shatea Threadgill.
The Fusion Steppers at Sunday’s parade.
Tiny athletes with the Walter Pop Smith Little League.
This year’s Freddy Fixer Parade Sunday ended in tears … of joy, as Nation Drill Squad and Drum Corps leader Douglas “Dougie” Bethea passed the baton to his daughter after three decades at the helm of the multiple national championship award-winning team.
Bethea, a street outreach worker who founded the Nation Drill Squad and Drum Corps in 1989 after graduating from Hillhouse, led his brightly-clad steppers and drummers down Dixwell Avenue Sunday at the tail end of the 55th annual Elm City Freddy Fixer Parade.
Thousands turned out for the annual celebration of local African American history and culture. “You go, Dougie!” onlookers called out as he burst into tears by the parade’s Dixwell Plaza grand stand at the end of his final march as the head of Nation.
Bethea marches at the front of the Nation Drill Squad and Drum Corps.
“I gave 30 years to my community,” Bethea said through tears as he hugged his daughter, Shatea Threadgill, who will be succeeding Bethea as the drill team’s leader. “And I’ve marched in this parade for 40 years. It’s been the best.” Under Bethea’s leadership, Nation has won 12 national championships and 16 tri-state championships in the past three decades.
“This is testimony to how much we love you in the Elm City, brother,” said Majesty, the parade’s master of ceremonies. “Your 30 years of service have not gone unnoticed. You’re passing the baton to your daughter, and your dream will still be in existence.”
The Hillhouse High School marching band.
For the two hours before Bethea took his celebratory stomp down Dixwell, the historic African American commercial corridor was filled not with tears but with applause, rippling drum beats, and energizing step routines as around 70 different local and regional groups marched from Bassett Street down to Lake Place.
Parade committee President Petisia Adger (left) and Vice President Diane Brown (second from right) with Fred Smith, Jr. and William Kilpatrick.
“Our hard work has paid off,” parade committee Vice President and Stetson Librarian Diane Brown said about the months of preparation that she and committee President Petisia Adger put in to organizing and promoting this year’s festival, which saw its number of participating groups bump up from 55 to over 70.
Both she and Adger are leaving their roles at the head of the committee this year, Brown said, with the hope of attracting a younger generation of leaders to march the parade into its next five decades.
The Fusion Steppers at Sunday’s parade.
Flautists and trumpet players and snare drummers with the Hillhouse High School marching filled the neighborhood with a brassy beat, as many marching behind them or watching from the sidewalks touted the community-building energy they most love about Freddy Fixer.
Erik Clemons leads students and graduates and teachers at ConnCAT, which served as the parade’s collective grand marshal.
“It feels like the community is giving us a big hug,” said Erik Clemons, whose Newhallville-based job training and education nonprofit, the Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT), served as the collective grand marshal for this year’s parade.
Tiny athletes with the Walter Pop Smith Little League.
“We’re looking to move much of our impact over to Dixwell Avenue in the years ahead,” he added, alluding to an affiliate of ConnCAT’s recent purchases of the condos in Dixwell Plaza.
The Hamden Academy of Dance *& Music.
Others at the parade said that Sunday was their first time coming out to see Freddy Fixer in years, even decades, because they’ve finally been able to shake any fears of violence breaking out at the annual celebration. The one year that the parade was cancelled, in 2008, was because of the city’s fear that youth violence would mar the festivities.
Harry Reddish (pictured) said that this year was his first time at the parade in three decades. He marched in the parade as a Mason in his younger days, then stopped coming out of fear of getting shot.
“I didn’t want a bullet to hit me,” he said. Now, after hearing nothing but good things about the parade in recent years, he decided to come out on Sunday and enjoy. “I feel free,” he said.
Cheryl Gomes (pictured), a retired public school teacher and a current member of the city’s Youth Commission, said that she too hadn’t been out to watch the Freddy Fixer parade in over a decade. “I feel safe,” she said about Sunday’s event.
And, reflecting on recent gun violence in the neighborhood, including the officer-involved shooting on Argyle Street, Gomes said Sunday’s parade represented a perfect opportunity for a mass public celebration rather than the all-too-familiar collective gatherings to mourn and protest.
“There’s so much crime here,” she said, “we need something good.”
Which is exactly what the rest of the parade provided.
Audra Clark, a site director with the local literacy nonprofit New Haven Reads, handed out free children’s books to eager young hands and minds …
… and the fez-topped members of the Arabic Temple #40 danced in slow but charming synchronicity …
… as riders with the Hartford-based Ebony Horsewomen gently trotted in circles down Dixwell Avenue atop patient and well-trained beats of beauty …
… and Marlene Pratt, a Career High School science teacher and the primary mover behind the planned West Rock memorial to victims of gun violence, handed out flyers about the project and encouraged anyone watching who had lost a loved one to a shooting to come forward so that his or her name could be included in the botanical garden project.
Gun violence in the city most affects New Haven’s black and brown communities, Pratt said, which made Freddy Fixer the perfect opportunity to connect with people who might be interested in knowing about, and becoming a part of, the homicide memorial project.
Demethra Telford, mother of the late Tyrick Keyes, rides atop a float promoting the Survivors of Homicide Botanical Garden Project.
“This gives us a chance to give insight and get the word out,” she said. The memorial will already include over 600 names of locals who have died due to gun violence in recent decades, she said. She only expects that number to grow as people learn about the memorial.
The parade’s judges Glen Worthy and Darryl Huckaby selected the following groups for the 2019 Freddy Fixer Parade Awards:
Grand Marshal Award: Trinbago American Association of Southern CT
Elm City Freddy Fixer Spirit Award: Petisia M. Adger
Best Marching Unit: James Hillhouse High School Marching Unit & Band
Best Float: Survivors of Homicide Botanical Garden Project & Bereavement Care Network, Inc.
Best Motorcycle Group: Soul Seekers MC Club
Best Drill Team: Nation Drill Squad & Drum Corp
Best Marching Band: Achievement First Amistad High School Marching Wolves
Click on the Facebook Live videos below to watch parts of the Freddy Fixer Parade, and to listen to an interview about the history of the parade with with parade committee leaders Adger and Brown on WNHH’s “Dateline New Haven” program.