Organizers of the Fete nationale parade are apologizing to people who were upset by the sight of black teenagers pushing a float carrying a white singer.

Footage of the float from Saturday's parade was posted on social media and prompted some people to link the images to slavery and spoke to a lack of diversity in the parade.

The organizing committee says it never intended to create racist images.

Originally, Maxime Laporte, head of the Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montreal, which organized the event, rejected the charges of racism as "unfair" and "exaggerated."

He said it was pure chance that black teens were pulling the float.

The teenagers were recruited from a local high school and the head coach of the school's football team suggested the students were happy to take part.

Meantime, the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations is suggesting several concrete measures to ensure the incident doesn’t happen again, including ensuring there is more racial diversity on the organizing committee and all levels of planning and decision-making, and integrating cultural diversity into all programming.

“Greater attention should be paid to the need for more diverse personalities and performers who sing and speak from the floats, not only to those who volunteer to push them in silence,” a news release read.

With files from CTV Montreal