Many in the neighborhood might not fully comprehend the effort and lifestyle involved in leading a masquerade band, known as a ‘Mas Band,’ for Boston Carnival, but one life-long Dorchester resident has been living it since before she was born. She continued that tradition this past weekend when the 49th Boston Carnival Parade returned after a two-year COVID-19 hiatus.

Errin (Mayhew) Douglas, 26, has spent a better part of her life – including when she was in her mother’s womb as she was marching in the Boston Carnival – immersed in the Trinidadian-style Carnival culture.

Her grandmother, Jean ‘Mam’ Mayhew, started one of the first ‘Mas Bands’ in Boston on Mt. Ida Road in the Bowdoin/Geneva neighborhood under the name ‘Social Organization for Caribbean Americans (SOCA) & Associates.’

That ‘Mas Band,’ now under the leadership of Oswald and Margaret Black, has been one of the oldest and strongest throughout the years - planning their costumes, bending all the wires for the feathered plumes, and charting their masquerade dances up on Mt. Ida Road for decades.

“That home became the home to not only my mother and her six older brothers, but also has gone on to be a host to uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, cousins, friends, and strangers alike, that sought refuge and aide from the hardships faced when arriving in America and while growing and raising families here,” Douglas said.

“My grandmother’s home was filled with notes of Trinidad that could make you feel as if you were still on the island, while in reality you were right off of Columbia Road.”

For many of those years, Douglas said, she was right beside her family as a child, and then at the center of it all as an adult. Though her days are spent as a partner in The Davis System, a strategic communications company that coordinates matters for their high-profile political and business clients, her free time is still spent at the ‘Mas Camp’ on Mt. Ida Road.

“I have the honor of being a Boston-born Trinidadian-American and a masquerader for Boston carnival since in utero,” she said last Friday during the Caribbean American Carnival Association of Boston (CACAB) breakfast.

“Most kids in Boston spent their summer at Camp Harbor View, I spent my summers at ‘Up on De Hill’ at SOCA Mas Camp and that has given me a window into how carnival has developed over the years.”

SOCA & Associates has won several first-place trophies and has been the Band of the Year in the past at the Boston Carnival as well as at carnivals in Cambridge and Worcester. They were known in the early days for their masquerade performance ‘Pirates in the City.’

They’ve also had numerous kings and queens of Boston Carnival (Douglas was once a Junior Queen).

While she was growing up in Bowdoin/Geneva, and attending St. Peter’s School, the Carnival lifestyle and experiences, she said, have shaped her as much as her schooling did. She called on all groups to come together and put differences aside to bring Carnival to a new generation.
“As we must honor the past, where we started and where we have been able to go, it is also critical that we look on to the future and bring in new perspectives and ideas to what Boston Carnival can be for even more generations to come,” she said, adding:

“It is our duty to work together to prepare the next generation and honorably pass the torch to those who will champion our issues.”

She noted the work of past leaders, from CACAB President Shirley Shillingford to steel pan icon Carl Smith, to costume specialist Ansyl Niles to founder Ken Bonaparte Mitchell – among many others. Those leaders, she said, helped push Carnival to the forefront in Boston and prevented it from being shut down or the Parade route shortened.

Douglas said it would only be with renewed unity – which has been a challenge among the Carnival crews over the last few years – that Boston Carnival will improve and continue on with the younger generations.

To illustrate that, Douglas said, all the mottos of countries like Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana, Grenada, and Haiti are based around the concept of unity. She called on all the Mas Bands, CACAB, and all the others associated with Boston Carnival to unite.

“Although we represent different countries, generations, and perspectives, Carnival is what unites us all,” she said.  “It does not matter if you are a CACAB board member, a band leader, a promoter, a DJ, a photographer, a moko jumbie, a blue devil, an old ‘mas wearer,’ a ‘pretty mas player,’ or just a spectator - Carnival belongs to us all. It is our only time to be free and we cannot allow it to slip away because we as a people cannot agree.”