The South Side event—one of the largest parades in Chicago—takes place the second Saturday of each August. The starting point is at Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Oakwood Boulevard, and ends at Garfield Boulevard (55th Street) and Ellsworth Drive.
The parade’s website states that the parade is named after the Billiken, the guardian angel of all children, according to Chinese legend. The event is the brainchild of Robert Sengstacke Abbott—also the founder of the Chicago Defender newspaper.
The 2015 parade grand marshal was Roy Austin, deputy assistant to the president for urban sffairs, justice and opportunity at the White House’s Domestic Policy Council.