The Pride Committee of North Carolina hosted the 26th annual Pride Parade and Festival at Duke’s East Campus Saturday to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
An estimated 10,000 people from all over the state attended the event.
About 190 vendors, ranging from church groups to jewelry businesses, set up booths at 10 a.m. around Trinity Circle. After several speakers rallied the crowd together, about 2,000 people marched alongside 10 to 15 floats on Campus Drive and continued to Ninth Street, Markham Avenue and Broad Street. After the parade, festivities continued into the evening at the Hargett Street area in Raleigh. Major sponsors of the parade this year included Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Time Warner Cable and Whole Foods.
Senior Robert Krattli attended the parade and said he thought it was a great event to embrace people of all genders and sexual orientations.
“I think that what Pride gives people is an occasion to celebrate who they are and allows them a chance to say, ‘Hey, I have a right to exist’ in however they choose to express themselves,” Krattli said. “This isn’t about shoving an agenda or recruiting innocent bystanders. It is an opportunity to bring together a family of individuals that culminates in a shining beacon of hope for those who feel they are lost and alone in what can be a very scary world. To know that you have a place to belong is more important than any other cause, and that is what Pride is about, you are home.”
Duke’s Center for LGBT Life had a float and has sponsored the parade for the past five years. About 100 students, both undergraduate and graduate, participated in the event, said Janie Long, director for the Center for LGBT Life.
“We continue to receive reports from students across the campus of incidents that are bias and prejudice related to LGBTQ students,” Long wrote in an e-mail. “We think the visibility and community building that the Pride Parade event creates for LGBTQ students on the Duke campus is just one of many ways to encourage students to feel a sense of pride in who they are, to enhance their sense of community and to counter bias and prejudice.”
The festival ran very smoothly, said Keith Hayes, spokesman for the Pride Committee, but there was a slight air of disappointment at the event because of the recent controversy over the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, after the Senate voted against debating a bill last Tuesday that would repeal the policy.
“People were talking about ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ all day long,” Hayes said. “It was a real lightning rod to the human rights campaign, which got 500 people to sign petitions to repeal the policy. This shows the value and importance of community activism through a parade like this.”
Although the Pride Committee, which hosted the event, is not directly affiliated with national LGBT organizations, it strives to accomplish the same goals with the annual festival.
“We have two goals: to create an annual moment of celebration for the LGBT community and to build bridges with the non-gay community,” Hayes said. “We have enormous support from the city of Durham, from non-gay churches and various grassroots organizations.”
But not everyone came to the event in support of the cause. This year, about 15 protesters from the Bull City Outreach Ministries came to the parade, but were either met with counter-protesters or were ignored. Hayes said the parade meets some resistance from various Christian groups every year.
Despite some opposition, the parade has continued to expand during the past few years, and the Pride Committee may have to re-route the parade in order to fit more floats, Hayes added.
“Every year, I see more university students and high school students coming out to participate in the event,” Hayes said. “That’s immensely gratifying. I think that the Pride Parade helps create a safe environment for young people to come out in, which I did not have in 1980 when I was a young person.”
Andrew Karim contributed reporting.
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