Until the appearance of the Little Bill balloon in the 2002 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade there was no conspicuous celebration of racial diversity in the parade.

Having been misrepresented in previous parades, a group of American Indians decided to stage their own Parade for America’s Indigenous Peoples in New York City on the day before the Macy’s parade in 1991. The group had allegedly been excluded from participation in the Macy’s parade the year before and found holding their own parade the most effective way of including themselves in the holiday’s celebration. [1]

Macy’s 2002 parade witnessed the debut of the parade’s first African American balloon character. While the majority of the parade’s balloons have taken the shape of animals and other non-human creatures, many of the parade’s most memorable balloons have been human icons of strength and power like Superman and Uncle Sam. The introduction of Nickelodeon’s Little Bill™, the star of a TV show based on a children’s book character created by Bill Cosby, was an important step toward incorporating more celebrations of racial diversity in the parade.