News and Media

A parade of memories: At the 95th Bud Billiken Parade, the South Side Home Movie Project will feature archival footage from the Ramon Williams Collection.

(Chicago Reader)

With a Kodachrome film camera in hand, Williams ventured beyond his doorstep to immortalize the daily life of his community. The amateur filmmaker first picked up the camera in 1943, documenting Chicago and, most poignantly, his south-side neighborhood. Much of this personal footage remained unseen until 2020, when a Williams family friend donated some 300 archival films to the South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP), a project of Arts + Public Life (APL) at the University of Chicago. The SSHMP team cataloged a box titled “8–9–48” with an attached Century Centre Cinema business card. Inside the box was a 16 mm film, featuring a lively procession of floats, local businesses, community organizations, and performances by Bronzeville’s youth at the 1948 Bud Billiken Parade—one of many archived reels focused on the largest African American parade in the U.S.