Mummers Parade

Mummers Parade
A group of "comic" mummers in the 2005 parade
Genre	Parade
Date(s)	New Year's Day
Frequency	Annual
Location(s)	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Years active	117
Inaugurated	January 1, 1901 (first official parade)
Most recent	January 1, 2017
Website
phillymummers.com

The Mummers Parade is held each New Year's Day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It is believed to be the oldest folk festival in the United States.

Local clubs (usually called "New Years Associations") compete in one of four categories (comics, fancies, string bands, and fancy brigades). They prepare elaborate costumes, performance routines, and moveable scenery, which take months to complete. This is done in clubhouses – many of which are on or near 2nd Street (called "Two Street" by some local residents) in the Pennsport neighborhood of the city's South Philadelphia section – which also serve as social gathering places for members.

The parade has been broadcast since 1993 on WPHL-TV, which has live streamed the event on its website since 2011. After a national campaign to get the parade nationally televised, an edited two-hour broadcast of the parade was picked up by WGN America and WGN-TV; the broadcast debuted January 3, 2009.

The parade is repeatedly critiqued by local residents, academics, and the media for its racist depiction of minority groups, which often includes blackface, brownface, or redface caricatures. Although Philadelphia is demographically dominated by people of color, the parade participants are almost exclusively from South Philadelphia white social groups with European ancestry.

The parade traces back to mid-17th-century roots, blending elements from Swedish, Finnish, Irish, English, German, and other European heritages, as well as African heritage. The parade is related to the Mummers Play tradition from Britain and Ireland. Revivals of this tradition are still celebrated annually in South Gloucestershire, England on Boxing Day along with other locations in England and in parts of Ireland on St. Stephen's Day and also in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador around Christmas.