70th Annual Watts-Hillandale Fourth of July parade and Celebration in Durham

The 69th Annual Watts-Hillandale Fourth of July parade and Celebration will take place Thursday, July 4th, 2018, at 10 a.m., at Oval Drive Park, 2200 W. Club Boulevard, Durham.

This is Durham’s oldest Fourth of July celebration.

These details are from 2018, but they are likely to be the same for 2019. If we hear of changes, we will update:

There will be a collection of food for the pantry at Urban Ministries. Look for collection bins near the tee shirt sales in Oval Park at parade time. There will also be the opportunity to make cash donations, if you prefer. Most needed items include: canned meat, pasta, tomato sauce, cereal, canned pasta, mac and cheese, peanut butter, hamburger helper, and instant mashed potatoes.

This tradition started in 1950, when Club Boulevard neighbors Tom and Alice Walker rounded up a handful of sweaty neighborhood kids, helped them decorate their bikes and trikes with red, white, and blue crepe paper and gave them a flag to carry. After marching up and back the sidewalk twice, the children recited the Pledge of Allegiance and sang America the Beautiful and other patriotic songs.

Since then the event has grown every year. More kids came out and their parents began to join in. The whole community started pitching in to support the event. In recent years, as many as 1,000 people have attended the neighborhood parade.

The fire department sends a fire truck out to lead the parade. The OK Chorale, a group of local singers that includes several Watts-Hillandale neighbors, leads the singing of patriotic songs. Hager Rand and the Coca Cola Bottling Company on Hillsborough Road provide hundreds of ice-cold Cokes in the little glass bottles to beat back the July heat.

Decorate your bikes, wagons, strollers, scooters, and trikes, wave a flag, wear red, white and blue, and join in!