Thousands celebrate NC Pride 2006
by Matt | October 1st, 2006 |
On Saturday, September 30, an estimated 8,000-9,000 people gathered in Durham, NC, for the annual NC Pride Parade and Festival. According to festival organizers, this year’s events were the largest and most successful in the more than 20 year history of the event.
Festival goers spent the morning on Saturday milling about the lawn of Duke University’s East Campus checking out the hundreds of vendors, non-profit organizations and attractions. HGTV was there, of course. Every year HGTV gives out small backpacks at NC Pride and other pride celebrations across the country. Alternative Resources of the Triad pumped their new “Guys of the Triad” calendar and their community website, OutGreensboro.com. Political and education groups were also present, including HRC, EqualityNC, the Log Cabin Republicans, PFLAG Triangle, PFLAG Winston-Salem, iNSIDEoUT, Triangle Community Works and more.
The Parade was one of the largest and longest I’ve ever seen and the on-looking crowd was huge, too. The Parade included a large presence from college and university LGBT student groups, including groups from UNCG, App State, NC State, Chapel Hill, Duke, ECU, Guilford and others.
The NC Pride Festival also awarded Jim Baxter its first annual community award (pictured right). Jim Baxter is the former editor of the long-running and well-respected LGBT paper in North Carolina, The Front Page. After a 30 yera run The Front Page merged with Q-Notes, where Jim Baxter now works.
The Night Festival in Raleigh drew a large crowd of party-goers and great nightlife. From what I hear, Club Legends on Hargett Street was THE place to be on Saturday night. Friday night’s Pride kickoff party, “The Big Top,” was also a huge success.
Like PrideCharlotte, however, the NC Pride Parade had its share of radical right, religious fanatics. Ironically, it was the same group which protested in Charlotte. OperationSaveAmerica and their leader Flip Benham stood on the parade route, opposite of the entrance to Duke’s East Campus. As our group from UNCG marched past them, we began to sing “Jesus Loves Me.” The entire crowd joined in, drowning out any noise the fanatics could make. After the parade the crowd around crazy Flip and his crazy group swelled and we headed back over. Once again we sang “Jesus Loves Me.”
One of Operation Save America’s members came up to one of UNCG PRIDE!’s members and harassed her. She asked our member (who uses a wheel chair) if she would “believe in God if He would take her out of that chair” and that “Satan wouldn’t take her out.”
Overall, despite the nine folks who protested, the thousands of festival-goers had a great time. The Pride Festival is one time every year that the North Carolina LGBT and straight allied community can unite and celebrate our freedoms and empower ourselves to continue working for equality.
Check out the Durham Herald-Sun article on the Festival.
Photos from NC Pride:
Technorati Tags: North Carolina, NC Pride, Durham, Raleigh, UNCG
One Response to “Thousands celebrate NC Pride 2006”
The 22nd Annual NC Pride Festival & Parade was a huge success. I was extremely proud of all of the organizers for putting together such an awesome event. There was thousands of LGBT people and their allies on hand to promote pride & affirmation of LGBT people and their rights. Police officials estimated the crowd to be somewhere between 8,000-10,000 strong. Festival organizers believe that the crowd was probably somewhere between 6,000-8,000. Nevertheless, it was one of the largest in the 22 year history of the event.
The parade was amazing. It was about 45-50 minutes in length and was only interrupted once by an Operation Save America protestor. Operation Save America, the group who also invaded Charlotte Pride 2 years ago with hundreds of members, was on hand to ’preach’ their message of hate & homophobia to festival attendees. […]
By The Queer Standard on Oct 3, 2006