The story
Annie Malone May Day Parade in St. Louis
The Annie Malone May Day Parade is an annual civic parade in St. Louis, Missouri, honoring Annie Malone, an early twentieth-century Black entrepreneur and philanthropist who built a hair care empire and funded the orphanage now known as Annie Malone Children and Family Service. Held annually since 1922, it has traditionally run through downtown St. Louis, though in 2025 and 2026 it shifted to a Community Festival and Talent Showcase format amid financial and recovery challenges.
Annie Malone rose from modest beginnings in nineteenth-century Illinois to become one of the wealthiest Black businesswomen in the United States, building a hair care and cosmetics empire, Poro College, that employed and trained thousands of Black women across the country in an era of severe economic and racial barriers.