The East Akron Labor Day parade, one of Akron’s largest annual parades, celebrates its 50th anniversary on Monday.
The parade will kick off Sept. 1 at 10 a.m. from the intersection of 7th Avenue and South Arlington Street and ends at David Hill Community Learning Center in East Akron.
Cazzell Smith, one of the parade’s founders, said that this year’s theme, “Bringing Community Together: 50 Years of Celebration,” is all about continuing to celebrate the East Akron neighborhood’s community pride.
Smith and Quintella Walters, another parade founder, were both involved in a Memorial Day parade on the west side in 1972 and wanted to host a similar parade in their own neighborhood to celebrate its community development successes.
Just a few months later, Smith and Walters, along with fellow East Akron residents and community organizers Grady Appleton and Art Minson, organized the first East Akron Labor Day parade.
“I grew along with the parade, the parade grew along with me,” Smith said.
Neighborhood block clubs help start a tradition
Initially, the parade units were primarily from East Akron and included the neighborhood’s 24 block clubs.
Smith said it took about three years before other groups outside East Akron marched. Today, parade units come from throughout Summit County.
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Approximately 60 units march in the parade, which include funeral homes, drum corps, marching groups, Corvette clubs, antique cars, politicians and elected officials.
Last year’s parade chair, Mary White, said via email that Portis Barber and Style Shop, Boyer’s Body Shop, Ace Hardware, Arlington Church of God and Al Kaf Temple #109 are local businesses and organizations that have supported the parade or been involved in it since the beginning.
The Labor Day parade route has slightly changed over the years, but the main part has always taken place on South Arlington Street.
The parade began 53 years ago, but because it was canceled in 2010, 2011 and 2012, this year marks the 50th celebration.
This year’s parade chair is Akron NAACP President Judi Hill, and Summit County Clerk of Courts Tavia Galonski is the grand marshal.
Parade takes a three-year break, restarts in 2013
An Akron Beacon Journal article from Sept. 1, 2010, explained that the parade was cancelled due to lack of meaningful participation from East Akron residents. The festival had become too large and lost its focus on East Akron, residents said. In the beginning, the East Akron block clubs would build floats for the parade, but they stopped building them around the 1990s.
Smith said that East Akron residents wanted to bring back the parade, so the organizing committee regrouped and found ways to get East Akron residents more involved. The parade returned in 2013.
It’s a large undertaking – the committee spends the entire year planning it.
The continuity of the parade’s organizers is one of its strengths, said Smith.This year he is a parade coordinator.
Smith first began working at the East Akron Community House (EACH) when he was 23. He became the organization’s longtime executive director and now works with East Akron Neighborhood Development Corp. (EANDC).
The two neighborhood organizations have both played a large part in the success of the East Akron Labor Day parade. All four of the parade founders were members of EACH.
EACH was founded in 1911 as a settlement house, according to a June 23, 1984, Akron Beacon Journal article. The idea was that educated people would live in a poor urban neighborhood in order to promote social reform.
At the time, East Akron was home to many of Akron’s Greek and Slavic immigrants. By the 1940s, East Akron’s population had shifted, and many African Americans had moved to the neighborhood. EACH continued to act as a center for the neighborhood’s concerns and encouraged residents’ involvement to make change.
EACH dissolved in 2022 (the building it occupied at 550 S. Arlington St. was sold to the EANDC in 2015). EANDC was led by Labor Day parade co-founder Appleton for 35 years before he retired in 2017.
The EANDC focuses on revitalizing and strengthening communities in East Akron specifically but also throughout Summit and Stark counties. The organization develops affordable housing, programs such as first-time home buyer and financial literacy classes and projects such as the creation of the Middlebury Market Place on East Exchange Street, which brought a grocery store nearby to East Akron.
Today, EANDC serves as the main sponsor and fiscal agent of the parade.
“We want to continue to maintain the fellowship and friendship in the [East Akron] neighborhood, and the parade helps us further perpetuate togetherness,” Smith said.