Chicago’s children enjoyed the Bud Billiken Day parade Saturday. The 84th annual parade event traditionally celebrates the upcoming school year.
As many children will be attending new schools because of Chicago’s massive school closings, they can be expected to “face back-to-school jitters,” the group Six Brown Chicks wrote on the Chicago Now blog, here. Also on the site, you’ll be able to view about 30 pictures of the parade.
But those jitters were put aside for a gorgeous, mid-70-degree day in the sun on the city’s south side. “It gives us an opportunity to celebrate our youth,” the Chicago Tribune quoted one resident who came to the parade Saturday for the first time in several years as saying.
Chicago may be close to the top of the pack when it comes to the number of murders inside city limits, particularly in African-American communities, but the parade gave people an opportunity to show the positive side of those neighborhoods.
One 57-year-old woman, for example, brought one of her granddaughters from Indianapolis, the Tribune reported. “There is a lot of crime here, but what I’ve noticed is a lot of positivity,” she said. It “shows we as a people can come together.”
The tradition started in 1929. The founder of the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper in the city, arranged an outing for the young people who sold his newspaper, and it has grown into one of the biggest African-American celebrations anywhere. The “Bud Billiken” name came from a figurine from China that Robert S Abbott, the paper’s founder, had on his desk.
The parade itself is the oldest and largest African-American parade in the US, ABC 7 reported. ABC aired the parade live, and an on-demand video of the festivities is available here.
This year’s parade featured politicians, local celebrities, marching bands, musical floats, and more, strutting their stuff in front of an estimated 900,000 onlookers. A picnic afterwards has become a tradition for many families. Family, fraternity, and sorority picnics dotted the lawns along the parade route, CBS 2 reported.
