South Side Bud Billiken Parade marks the start of the back-to-school season

Marilyn Griffin traveled just one block from her Bronzeville home Saturday morning, as she does most years, to hand out school supplies for kids and join thousands gathered along Martin Luther King Drive on the South Side for an August ritual in the Black community: the annual Bud Billiken Parade.

Griffin says she’s glad the parade has lived on for 96 years.

“It speaks to the longevity of the African American family and the support systems that the communities provide for these families,” Griffin said. “As a resident of Bronzeville, it just really warms my heart to be here to watch this year after year.”

The parade is considered the largest of its kind in the U.S. and marks the start of the school year.

As local high school bands, drill and dance teams marched down King Drive in the steamy heat, bystanders set up lawn chairs, food stands and grills along the parade route.

Carolyn Jones, the principal of Perkins Bass Elementary in Englewood, called the parade a “reset.”

“We've had a great time off in the summer,” Jones said. “Everybody is relaxed and chill. And now we're going back to handle the business of school

She said her students learn about how the parade was created in 1929 by Robert Sengstacke Abbott, the founder of the Chicago Defender, as a way to celebrate Black children and their achievements.

Further down the route was Shenika Dupart, who brought her niece and grandson.

“As a child, I've always come to the Bud Billiken; it's been a family tradition,” she said. “So I was very excited to come. I was off work, and it was like, ‘Why not bring the little ones?’”

Dupart said the parade is an opportunity to celebrate “people from my background, my culture, my nationality.”

Bri’leigh, her 7-year-old niece, said she hopes to join one of the dance teams at next year’s parade.

For Delecter Clark from Old Town, the parade takes him back to his childhood.

He used to come to see the cheerleaders and school bands perform each year with his siblings. Clark recalled how they used to hunt for a shady spot near the barricades wherever they could squeeze in along the parade route.

As an adult, he now sees the parade as a symbol of Chicago’s history.

“It’s been here way before I was born,” Clark said, “So it's history to me.”

Among the groups at the parade were representatives of the National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, which is located in the Pullman neighborhood.

This year, the museum is celebrating the centennial of the founding of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first Black labor union in America. The BSCP was founded by the labor organizer and civil rights leader Asa Philip Randolph and a group of porters who were employed by the Pullman Company. They fought against harsh working conditions and discrimination in the workplace.

This year’s celebration comes as the Trump administration has scaled back some of the kind of civil rights protections that leaders like Abbott and Randolph fought for, parade-goers said.

Jones, the Perkins Bass principal, said she has not been surprised by the Trump administration’s actions.

“I’m just praying that we as a community can continue to stand up and fight for what we know is right,” she said.

Anna Savchenko is a reporter for WBEZ. You can reach her at asavchenko@wbez.org.