Culture & Community | Arts & Culture | WNHH | Elm City Freddy Fixer Parade
Students from the Hamden Academy of Dance & Music at the Historic Elm City Freddy Fixer Parade last year. Lucy Gellman File Photo.
It's the steady heartbeat of the drums, always drifting skyward, that will let Dixwell Avenue know there's magic in the air. From a crisp, steady rumble, they will swell over the cracked asphalt and onto the sidewalk, a kind of benediction. Behind them, dozen, then hundreds, of footfalls will follow. If neighbors aren't dancing along in the first five minutes, it may well be a surprise to everyone involved.
That's how Reese McLeod-Brunson, president of the Em City Freddy Fixer Parade Committee, is envisioning this year's parade day, which is less than a week away after months of painstaking planning and long hours of work with community members to make a three-day weekend soar from start to finish. Last Friday, she came on WNHH Community Radio's "Arts Respond," a collaboration with the Arts Paper and the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, to talk about it.
"The Freddy Fixer is a fixture in the New Haven community, and how could we go on and talk about history and legacy, and not continue this beautiful, historic parade?" said McLeod-Brunson, who spent years fêting the Freddy as a little girl long before she ever took over operations. Years later, she feels indebted to its founders and former presidents for building the tradition. "[It's] The longest-standing African-American parade in the Northeast!"
The Freddy Fixer was originally founded as a community clean-up in 1962, by New Haveners Frederick F. Smith, Edna Carnegie-Baker, and Charles Twyman. In the decades since, it has become a rich and storied neighborhood tradition, from day-long cookouts and family gatherings to outfits that are picked weeks ahead of time. While there have been gaps in programming, this is the third year that it has been back on Dixwell Avenue, after taking a moment to rebuild after the Covid-19 pandemic stopped it in its tracks.
KJ Smith with members of the Powerhouse Performance Arts Studio at the Freddy in 2025. Lucy Gellman File Photo.
This year, the Freddy Fixer festivities begin on Friday June 5 with its eighth annual awards gala, honoring New Haven champions who have both done right by the community, and made New Haven proud on a statewide and national level. For McLeod-Brunson, it's a unique and often majestic chance to celebrate city residents who haven't always gotten their flowers, because they are so busy supporting everyone else around them. That gala begins at Anthony's Ocean View on Lighthouse Road at 6 p.m. Friday.
Awardees include Next Level Empowerment Program Co-Founder Ray Boyd, who has become a fierce advocate for those with lived experience in the carceral system and reentry (Boyd is the parade's Man of the Year); Style 2000 Owner Samantha Myers-Galberth; Dixwell booster Fred Christmas; Total Joy Are You (TJAY) Founder, social worker and Autism advocate and educator Tracey Foskey; philanthropist Lindy Lee Gold, a specialist at the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development; doctor Shay Taylor-Allen, a former janitor at Yale New Haven Hospital who returned there as a medical student, and is now staying on for a residency in anesthesiology; Connecticut Balloons owner Celeste Coleman; and Long Wharf Theatre Artistic Director Jacob G. Padròn.
"It's different than other award galas," McLeod-Brunson said. "We are going into the center, the core of the community. We're honoring individuals that may not be seen, or they're seen and not recognized for all the work that they do in the community."
Shari Caldwell, Diane Brown, Fred Christmas and Shamain McAllister at last year's Dixwell Neighborhood Festival. Lucy Gellman File Photo.
Parade weekend continues with the Dixwell Neighborhood Festival on Saturday, a collaboration between the International Festival of Arts & Ideas and a dedicated neighborhood committee helmed by Stetson Branch Manager Diane Brown (read about previous festivals here, here, and here ). As in years past, the hours-long event will feature live performances, line dancing and double dutch, a fashion show from designer Donald Carter, crafting with Iyaba Arts and a resource and vendor fair that features everything from social service providers to artist-entrepreneurs.
It highlights how Fredy Fixer Weekend relies on a village, McLeod-Brunson noted: Brown, who for years also kept the parade going alongside Vice President Petisia Adger, is both the logistical brain and the wildly beating heart of the festival. Without her, there's no way that it would have become the vibrant and broad celebration of community that it is.
On Sunday, people can return to Dixwell Avenue—this time, up by the Newhallville neighborhood border at Bassett Street, where Visels Pharmacy has been proudly in business for over 100 years—for the parade itself. This year, there are almost 100 marching units, according to an official lineup on the parade's website.
They range from crowd favorites, like the James Hillhouse and Wilbur Cross High School marching bands, to a new gospel choir led Scotticesa Marks that McLeod-Bruson is thrilled to have on board. In between, there is a little of everything: young athletes from the Pop Smith and Pop Warner little leagues, over half a dozen step teams, beauty salons, dance studios, and literary engines like New Haven Reads.
In every way, McLeod-Brunson said, it's a celebration of New Haven at its very best. Earlier this year, and based around an annual theme of "Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future," the parade named high school seniors Avery Harris and Timilia Thomas as parade king and queen respectively, a position that celebrates both their role in the next generation of up-and-coming New Haven's and their academic successes, both present and future. In the fall, both Harris and Thomas plan to attend Winston-Salem State University.
In addition to Harris and Thomas, the parade has been able to award scholarships to graduating high school seniors Ayden Lindsay and India Harrison, who are headed to Central Connecticut State University and Harris and Winston-Salem State University respectively. Meanwhile, they're also honoring the present: football player Tyler Booker, a son of New Haven who is now an offensive guard for the Dallas Cowboys, will serve as the parade's Grand Marshal. McLeod-Brunson added.
"We're excited for our students and all the work that they do academically and within the community," she said. "College is expensive, and books are expensive. Any way that we can help our community and help our youth, we will do that."
She doesn't do anything alone, McLeod-Brunson added: it has taken a veritable village to make the parade happen. It always does. Krista Gibbs and Haley Vincent-Simpson, who helped the parade come together last year, have stepped back in as lead parade coordinator and parade committee member. Samod "Nuke" Rankins has stayed on as treasurer. A parade committee and board has been with her every step of the way. Meanwhile, several of New Haven's cultural luminaries, from DJ Too Much to members of The Breed Entertainment, also joined the parade day lineup to keep the magic going.
The parade is also nurturing the next generation, McLeod-Brunson added. Mari Troutman, a 2020 Wilbur Cross grad who went on to study journalism and communications at Norfolk State University and NYU, has stepped up to do multi-modal storytelling around the parade. "She's going places and I'm super excited about her," McLeod-Brunson said.
"We have a whole team that comes together," she said. "We do the work and you see the results for the parade weekend ... we're excited. Come out and celebrate a great weekend with us."