The largest Black parade in America is back, y’all. This year, the Bud Billiken Parade is celebrating its 92nd anniversary after being cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That was the first time “The Bud,” which brings out about 500,000 people, had been called off since its inception in 1929.
Beginning Saturday at 10 a.m., the parade will feature two-time WNBA MVP and Chicago Sky star forward Candace Parker as the grand marshal. Among the other Chicagoans participating in the parade are Black People Eats founder Jeremy Joyce and Hugs No Slugs founder Englewood Barbie.
The festivities are going to look a little different this year, considering that we’re not all the way out of the pandemic woods just yet. Returning with COVID-safe modifications such as vaccination stations and fewer participants (from 250 to 125 participants), the parade will run from 45th and Martin Luther King Drive into Washington Park instead of beginning at 39th Street, its traditional starting point. A family-friendly festival called “It Takes A Village” will be held in Washington Park immediately following the parade at 4 p.m.
The TRiiBE spoke with parade chair and Chicago Defender Charities president Myiti Sengstacke-Rice. She is the great-grandniece of Robert Sengstacke Abbott, who founded the Chicago Defender in 1905 and later the Bud Billiken Parade as a way to celebrate the Black community at a time when other publications didn’t.
Sengstacke-Rice gives us insight into the new COVID-19 guidelines that have been put in place for the parade, the importance of promoting COVID education at the event and the overall impact that the parade has had on the city over the past 92 years.