BUD BILLIKEN Performing Arts LEAGUE
History
The Bud Billiken Club was a social club for Black youth in Chicago, established in 1928, by the Chicago Defender founder Robert Sengstacke Abbott and its editor, Lucius Harper. The Bud Billiken Club was formed as part of Chicago Defender Junior, the children's page in the newspaper, to encourage reading, appropriate social conduct, and involvement in the community, among the young people of Chicago.
Abbott learned that the Billiken was the guardian angel of children according to Chinese legend and adopted it as the mascot of the Club. Later in 1923, an eleven-year-old boy Willard Motley submitted a drawing to the Chicago Defender of a pudgy and cheerful boy, which Abbott named the "new Billiken". The name "Bud Billiken" is a pseudonym that Abbott selected for the organization, using his own nickname "Bud". In 2019 The Chicago Defender Charities re-launched the Bud Billiken Club to its nearly 200 marching bands, drill teams, dance teams, cheerleaders, tumblers and artistically gifted parade participants. Our first showcase included our partners from the South Shore Drill Team, ABC 7, WGCI, and Facebook. Our goal is to improve and expand the impact of the performing youth teams in and outside of the Chicagoland area.
MISSION
Continuing the mission of Bud Billiken Club, The Bud Billiken Performing Arts League (PAL), a 501(c) (3) is our organizations mission to promote youth involvement in the performing arts. The BBC (PAL) Performing Arts League is expected to grow to over 2000 members composed of youth between the ages of 8 and 18, young adult women and men, including active dance team professionals and retirees. BBC (PAL) will focus on five distinctive performance categories (Music, Dance, Drill, Marching Band, Cheerleading) that overlap with a multitude of other disciplines including Performance Arts, Media Arts and Film.
Our goal is to unite various organizations within our database to form one performance-based league. Through this league we have four main program objectives: (1) Expand Chicago’s “Performing Arts Culture” locally, nationally, and internationally; (2)Engage underserved communities of young people on a consistent and yearly basis; (3) Promote the history of the Chicago Defender and Bud Billiken Parade to a broader audience; (4) Make a sustainable investment in Community, Arts, and Education. We plan to do this by hosting quarterly showcases for each respective category (Dance, Drill, Marching Band, Cheerleading), that includes a Music element.
