Beverly Art Walk 2026

"More Parades" on display at the the 13th Annual Beverly Art Walk on September 26, 2026, 11-5, at The Annex (10240 South Wood, Chicago)

A (ROUGH) TIMELINE OF CHICAGO PARADES (or things I am calling parades)

After a bunch of research (looking through the Tribune, Sun Times, Wikipedia, Newberry Library, and Chicago History Museum Archives), some of the Chicago parades I am including in this piece are (images link to source):

Haymarket (1886)

2 May 1992

Polish Constitution Day Parade (since 1891)

20 June 1992

Serbian Unity Parade (since 1893)

Parade with Camel (World's Columbian Exposition, 1893) - from wikipedia and the Newberry Library

Suffrage Parade (7 June 1916)

30 May 1937

Memorial Day Parade (since 1926?)

St. Jude Memorial March (established circa 1932)

Thanksgiving Parade (est. c. 1934)

11 June 1966

Puerto Rican Day Parade (est. 1966)

Chicago Pride (est. c. 1970)

Columbus Day protest / counter-parade (c. 1970); Columbus Day Parade, St. Walter's School (1992, private collection)

South Side Irish parade (est. c. 1979) (photos by Eileen Murphy circa 1990 & 1994, private collection)

17 March 1987

St. Patrick's Day Parade, downtown

September 1992

Mexican Independence Day Parade

Cows on Parade (1999)

Arts in the Dark parade (est. 2014)

13 August 1977

Bud Billiken Parade (est. 1929)

Chicago Teacher's Union March (2012, 2019)

9 February 1986

Lunar New Year Parade, Chinatown (private collection) & Argyle Lunar New Year Parade (since 1981)

Apsáalooke Women and Warriors Parade (UChicago, March 2020)

No Kings (October 2025) (photos by Erica McCormack and Kathleen Murphy)

Chicago Torture Justice Memorial (circa 2022)

30 May 2020

Black Lives Matter

Labor Day

Temperance Parade (26 September 1908) - Newberry Library

22 May 1971

Greek Independence Day Parade

19 June 1982

New World Patriotism Day Parade

Chicago Bears Super Bowl Parade (1 January 1986)

White Sox

Cubs

4th of July, Hyde Park, Chicago (private collection)

7 June 1996

"Say No To Drugs" Parade @ Carver Elementary School

19 August 1970

River Parade

23 August 1974

Venetian Night Parade

6 October 1969

Fire Prevention Parade

Chicago Disability Pride Parade (est. 2003)

Parade on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (4 April 1982)

Ferris Beuller's Day Off

2021 parade (photo by Brittney Blair, used with permission - everything else is used without permission but for art!)

5 March 1971

This is not an exhaustive list of Chicago parades, more just what I found / came across before I filled the board! I did not use images of the Torchlight Parade, Croatian-American Parade, Women's March, or Apollo 11, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, and Apollo 16 Parades, but I did use signs from those events.