Bud billiken biography

For the past ninety-one years, one of Chicago’s back-to-school traditions has been the Bud Billiken Day Parade, which passes through the historic South Side neighborhood of Bronzeville and concludes with a picnic in Washington Park.

In 1923, Chicago Defender founder Robert S.

Abbott and his managing editor, Lucius Harper, formed the Bud Billiken Club. Abbott had long expressed a concern for Chicago’s African American youth, and the success of the Defender‘s “young people’s page” convinced him that a club would also be popular.

Harper apparently chose the name “Bud” because it was his own nickname, and “Billiken” because of its association with an ancient Chinese mythical character believed to be the guardian angel of all children.

The float for the Bud Billiken Day Parade king, queen, and court, August 10, 1968.

ST-40001296-0010, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM; Bob Black, photographer

By 1929, the Bud Billiken Club, with its membership cards and identi