While June is Pride month and traditionally Pride Celebrations are held at the end of June, most celebrations this year will be held later than usual. After most of the 2020 Pride Parades and Festivals were canceled or indefinitely postponed in the United States, it seems the 2021 Pride festivities, although pushed later into the year, will take place with as much pomp and circumstance as ever.
The first annual Franklin Pride Festival will be on Saturday, July 31 at The Park at Harlinsdale Farm featuring a Craft Fair, Vendor Booths, Beer & Wine, Food Trucks, Live Music and more!
The Fifth Annual Boro Pride will take place on August 21, 2021 at Cannonsburgh Village; 312 South Front Street, Murfreesboro.
After being cancelled in 2020, the 33rd Annual Nashville Pride Festival and Parade will take place September 18th and 19th at the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park.
The Gay Activists Alliance and Gay Liberation Front held marches in the late 1960’s that were the forerunners of the Stonewall riots. The Stonewall Inn was an illegal gay bar in the Greenwich Village part of Manhattan, NY. Because it was illegal for gays to socialize in public in the U.S prior to 1970, an organized crime syndicate ran the Stonewall to give the NYC gay population a place to mingle. The Stonewall Inn was raided on the evening of June 28, 1969 by the New York City police, starting a riot that lasted for days. The riots resulted from constant discrimination, inequality, and intolerance of the queer community.
Although there had been peaceful Gay Alliance Marches in Washington DC during the 1950’s and 1960’s, it seemed that it took this single act of revolt and violence to get the Gay Rights activism ball rolling. A march was planned for the following June 28, to commemorate the riots, by scattered gay activist communities in New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco; by the next year, 1971, the marches were international.
The “Gay Liberation” or “Gay Freedom” marches evolved into the Gay Pride Parade and Celebrations in the month of June. The word ‘pride’ was used to soften the movement from ‘liberation’ and ‘freedom’ and to promote the philosophy asserting that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity – whatever they may be.
