BRONZEVILLE — After they decided not to participate in the Bud Billiken Parade this year, the South Shore Drill Team has chosen to host their own parade instead Saturday.
Held at the Gary Comer Youth Center, 7200 S. Ingleside Ave. at 10 a.m. Saturday, the South Shore Drill team promises to "showcase all of our youth not just half" during the event, according to a post on Facebook.
Controversy surrounded the parade recently when the South Shore Drill Team opted to pull out of the parade this year.
The need to lower operational costs for the city and Chicago Defender Charities, who oversees the annual back-to-school parade, led organizers to enforce the number of participants.
Last year the team marched with 241 people.
Even still, parade spokeswoman Kristal Davis said they wouldn’t turn anyone away who was over the maximum, and never have.
Davis said the South Shore Drill Team's choice to not participate was their own decision, adding that they could have been in the parade, but never reached out to organizers.
Organizers tried contacting them several times, she said.
Davis said the parade has lasted up to six hours in the past due to large groups that stop to perform. Performing teams can only have up to 100 people. Davis said this helps speed things up, keeps children from standing in the heat for hours and clears the streets for area residents.
Helen Tyner, an Englewood resident who used to live near the parade's route, said she’s concerned the parade’s stricter enforcement on the number of participants is just an early sign of gentrification.
"We know when people are trying to push us out," Tyner said. "We know that King Drive has gentrified."
“This is one day that the neighbors on King Drive will have to be inconvenienced because this is our community,” Tyner said.
Despite what some may think, though, Davis said the community “loves the parade.”
“They have always supported the parade,” she said. “We still want to have moderation in having the event because we don’t want to have something that’s going on six hours where we’re inconveniencing people and closing down streets and tying up traffic.”
The Bud Billiken Parade is the oldest and largest African-American parade in the United States. This year's grand marshal is Katherine Branch, Director of Special Projects in the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs at the White House. The parade is in its 87th year.
The Bud Billiken Parade begins Saturday at 9 a.m. at 39th and King Drive and heads southbound along King, ending at Ellsworth Drive, where a big picnic in Washington Park takes place.
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