Bud Billiken Parade marches on without South Shore Drill Team

The Bud Billiken Parade marched onward Saturday without one of its biggest draws — the South Shore Drill Team.

But the 87th edition of the annual Bronzeville back-to-school parade still had its biggest attraction — tradition.

“It’s like one big family reunion,” said Barrington Reynolds, 50, who got there at 4:30 a.m. to stake out a choice location for his tent on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive at East 43rd Street — a spot his family has claimed for the last 10 Billiken parades.

“You have your spot,” Reynolds said. “Then, you see people here you haven’t seen in 10, 15 years. People are going to show up.”

The street was lined with parade-watchers, barbecue grills and vendors toting inflatable dolls, though some in attendance doubted the parade reached the estimated crowd of 1 million spectators. Some of that had to do with the potential for rain in early forecasts for Saturday, but the loss of South Shore Drill Team — and the hundreds of South Shore alumni, relatives and other supporters — also might have hurt.

Lou Foglia / Sun-Times

“They were my favorite ones to watch,” said 28-year-old Marpeesa Williams, who brought her 5-year-old son to the parade for the first time and was surprised she was able to get a seat along King Drive despite arriving just half an hour before the parade started. “I was surprised I was able to get that close. The crowd seems much smaller.”

The parade likely set a speed record for a modern Bud Billiken affairs, clocking in at about just three hours, said Kristal Davis, spokeswoman for organizer Chicago Defender Charities. The not-for-profit group had tried to shorten the duration of the parade, which in some years has tangled traffic in Bronzeville for seven hours or more, Davis said. But the group might have overshot the mark, Davis said.

“I think people were shocked at how fast the parade went this year,” Davis said. “The last group crossed the line around noon. I know people expect to spend the day at Bud Billiken, so there were still people out barbecuing.

“I think we’re going to try to find a happy medium for next year.”

The parade started at 9 a.m. — an hour earlier than in past years. Two years ago, Chicago Defender Charities instituted a limit of 100 marchers per group, though that was rarely enforced.

Davis said the 100-marcher cap prompted the South Shore Drill Team to drop out in the past week because the restriction meant it couldn’t bring its full complement of nearly 200 members.

While the group — and parade organizers — had ignored the 100-marcher limit the last two years, the South Shore Drill Team decided to hold a separate, solo parade for a few blocks down South Chicago Avenue in Grand Crossing that began about an hour after the Billiken Parade.

Denise Wilson wasn’t bothered by the controversy. Wilson, 59, sat with a few dozen relatives to watch. She grew up a few blocks from the parade route and said she has been to more than 50 Billiken parades, which she said is a rite of summer for the South Side African-American community.

“This is the back-to-school parade,” Wilson said. “When I was a kid, you knew there was the parade, and then you knew summer was over and it was time to go back to school.”

“If a group shows up with more than 100, we don’t turn kids away,” Davis said. “The Golden Knights Drill Team was here, and they looked like they had more than South Shore did last year. I think we will be able to work something out for next year.”