NC Pride Weekend


http://www.ncpride.org

I'm sure everyone has seen the rainbow flags downtown, and in case you were wondering, it is pride weekend here in NC.  The biggest events were the speeches, festival, and parade over in Durham today, but it is something the whole triangle & to some degree the state gets into.  If you check out this site, you'll see events all over, including several in Chapel Hill.  It marks the 25th anniversary of this celebration.  There were speeches, festival grounds, food, vendors, booths, and lots of fun to be had.  I believe it is important to see this as not only a good time, but also as a large political rally with a positive message since this was the first NC Pride since prop 8 & the protests

It was great to see so many churches involved. I saw churches with tents set up at the fair grounds, churches marching in the parade, and churches passing out water bottles with rainbow labels on them to thirsty parade marchers inviting them to worship with them. It is easy to forget just how many affirming church voices there are out there, when a few decide to get loud & ugly. But I had a very positive experience with the parade over all. I heard most of Mark Kleinschmidt's speech. And when volunteering with Equality NC I was collecting signatures for their petition in suppport of ENDA. And having a clip board with a pro-lgbt equality petition on it is a great ice breaker for meeting all kinds of people at a festival. One couple I talked to went into detail about the openness they felt they could have with working at a hair salon vs working at target. And there were plenty of companies marching in the parade too which I thought was cool. I ended up marching with the Best Buy group just because several people I knew were going with them, and it was pretty awesome to see how welcoming a company like that can be because its not something you would usually think about. I know the Carrboro Plaza Vet where I worked was very open, and was willing when I asked to add sexual orientation to their non-discrimination policy.

So without any further ado, I'll share the pictures! (and more are being e-mailed to me, so I may have more to share soon)


One of many parade floats



I believe that was Senator Kinnaird on the right



I'm holding one of those water bottles from that a church volunteer gave to me



Looking up 9th Street

 

If you weren't able to make it to any of today's festivities but were still hoping to get involved, here is what is coming up in Chapel Hill tomorrow:

 

Chapel Hill

7pmPost Pride Coffee at the Cafe Driade
10pm"Go-Go Pride Party at Stir at East End Martini Bar, 201 E. Franklin. A new Sunday Tradition with upstairs dancefloor"

 

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My brother just e-mailed me some more pics from Pride which I thought I'd share:Looking down Main StreetAnother Parade FloatEven more Parade floatsComo se llama?US Airways Festival Grounds State Senator Kinnaird (this pic I borrowed from Pam Spaulding of pamshouseblend.com ) Browsing some facebook friends pride pics, I found a few extra I thought I might share:Photo Credit-NBC17: Here I am marching with the Best Buy crowd.  I was going to march with Equality NC after collecting signatures for their petition for about an hour, but I went too long and missed them lining up, but my brother who came with me used to work at Best Buy, and we both knew people from that crowd, so you can spot me here marching with them as we made up random chants to shout out:I put up even more pics that I've found over on bluenc just b/c its a little easier to load photos there (you just type the img src thing, which is in some sense not as easy, but to do 50 photos in a row w/ OP's display method it'd get a bit overwhelming):http://bluenc.com/nc-pride-weekend

 

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