The sunshine and humidity made for a muggy step-off at the annual Bud Billiken Parade on Saturday morning, but most didn’t seem to mind.
There was more elation than sweat as King Drive swelled with marching bands, drill teams and people on floats by 10 a.m. Mayor Rahm Emanuel led the route.
“Our kids are going back to school,” a man on the red Channel 5 double-decker bus shouted into a microphone. “It’s time to celebrate!”
This year’s theme was “Education: It’s an order!” but the scene was much more relaxed. Small grills every 10 feet or so billowed smoke, and families clustered under patches of shade. On the curb, a man lifted and dropped a big bag of ice over and over, breaking it apart, while small children chased each other.
Just south of East 41st Street, Carlos Walker cooked up a feast. The 41-year-old had been there since 7 a.m. charring ribs and hot dogs, and baking gallons of beans.
“Every year, same spot,” he said of the cookout, which raised money on behalf of the Masonic Order. He needed four large grills to make all the food, and it’s no surprise — it seemed as if the whole community had come out. The streets east and west of King Drive were eerily quiet, empty except for the hundreds of parked cars.
At each intersection, Chicago Fire Department paramedics stood next to bikes loaded with first-aid supplies, ready to help with incidents of dehydration and heat exhaustion. But it had been pretty quiet, they said. The clouds helped.
Police didn’t mention any incidents either, a welcome report after last year’s parade saw two teens shot just off the main route
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— a rare interruption to an otherwise historically peaceful event. “Everything’s going good,” an officer said Saturday. “Real good.”The first Bud Billiken Parade was held in 1929, and it’s the largest black parade in the U.S. This year’s event introduced a text voting system to pick the best parade acts, said Chez Smith, the parade’s organizer.
Before people began to spill into Washington Park, Marcus Wilson watched King Drive from his elevated front lawn, which he does each year. The 36-year-old cooked burgers while his family was scattered about — some sat near him, others were cheering by the street. “I have to man the grill,” he said with a laugh.
From his perch, you could see it all: the bands, the bead-throwing, the picnics, the people. And even after a night that saw more than two dozen shootings throughout the city — one of them just a block east of Washington Park, where a school supply giveaway was happening Saturday afternoon — not a worry could be seen.
Twitter @rachelacrosby