Bright floats, candy-tossing volunteers and the loud call of union slogans helped kick off this year’s Labor Day Parade in the Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side.
This year’s parade stepped off around noon Saturday from a new route location at 108th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue south to 113th Street. In prior years, the parade celebrating working people began at 104th Street and Ewing Avenue to Eggers Grove Forest Preserve.
Alex Jimenez, 26, relocated to Indiana from the Southeast Side last year, returned for the Labor Day celebration with his two young sons. He said he preferred the previous route in his former community.
“The old location was a better distance of walking, it had a nice route, a lot more people on the side passing out candy,” he said of the former East Side parade route.
“Candy!” His younger son echoed, happily brandishing a caramel lollipop.
Still, Jimenez, a member of Ironworkers Local 63, says he was happy to have a chance to celebrate the union landscape he proudly works in. “Labor Day means being represented by our local unions that fought for us to have our rights and protections,” he said.
For Pullman residents, the event was a testament to growing recognition for the neighborhood’s historic value.
Sue James, a member of the Historic Pullman Garden Club, sold club T-shirts modeled by her grandson to parade goers on the fly. As the weather lingered in the high 80s, James fanned herself under a long skirt and parasol, frowning at Pullman Park flower beds wilting in the heat.
“It’s not a crowded thing,” she said of the parade, “but it’s OK. We don’t need super big crowds. We’re a little neighborhood. We’re starting slow.”
Pullman has deep ties to the national labor movement through two major labor actions; the first being a major strike in 1894 among Pullman Car Company workers in the company town, disrupting the railroad industry to the point that the military was called in. President Grover Cleveland created the first Labor Day in the middle of the strike, hoping to appease workers during a national media firestorm.
The second major action was the formation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in Pullman. The Brotherhood reached a labor contract with the Pullman company in 1937, the first Black workers’ union to do so.
The historic district of Pullman, including Pullman Park, was named a National Historical Park by President Barack Obama in 2015.
Labor Day parades have taken place in Chicago since the 1880s, according to parade organizers. After declining interest in the 1940s and 1950s, celebrations returned in the form of The East Side Labor Day Parade. Backed by steel union families on the Southeast Side, this parade ran from 1959 to 1993.
The Chicago Federation of Labor revived a downtown version of the parade in the 1980s, often ending in Grant Park. The Southeast Side celebration on Ewing Avenue was brought back again by former 10th Ward Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza in 2015, to honor her father, United Steelworkers activist Edward “Oilcan” Sadlowski.
Garza also established Eddie Fest, a pro-labor festival celebrating unions after each parade. The event moved to the historic Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side this year following Garza’s retirement, though Eddie Fest continues.
Mayor Brandon Johnson marched in the parade, greeting spectators and giving children high fives. Hundreds of parade viewers trickled home after the procession down Cottage Grove Street ended. Those who made it to Pullman Park lounged on shady curbs near the Pullman National Historical Park visitors center. Many formed long lines for grilled bites from smoky white tents. Up In Smokers, a taquero and BBQ truck from Highland, Indiana, and Jerkman Catering, a kosher barbecue stand, proved the most popular.
As the parade moved into Eddie Fest, some toured the visitors center or practiced archery on hay bales outside. A group down the street from the center passed out leaflets declaring 2023 “hot strike summer” in Chicago.
Some Chicago Federation of Labor members brought their children with them onto the parade sponsor’s highly decorated float. Mid American Carpenters Regional Council, The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Chicago Teachers Union also showed a strong presence.
Kebin and Arlette Carr, both SAG-AFTRA members for 12 years, who drove in from Merrillville, Indiana, said the relocation to Pullman made Labor Day festivities more unique.
“It was really beautiful, seeing the smiles on peoples’ faces,” said Kebin Carr, 67. “We had a wonderful time. You can tell that people were relaxed.”
Kebin Carr said he finds kinship in his union. “There’s a lot of benefit to being in a union, to have that camaraderie, that unity, that cohesiveness,” he said.
“People that work, they spend their labor doing the things they enjoy doing, doing the things they got a degree in,” Kebin Carr said. “It’s an honor to be able to have a day where that’s celebrated.”
