Queens Pride Parade

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The Queens Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival
FrequencyAnnually every first Sunday in June
Location(s)Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City. Parade on 37th Avenue from 89th Street to 75th Street; festival at 75th Street and 37th Road
CountryUSA
Years active40
InauguratedJune 6, 1993 (1993-06-06)
FounderDaniel Dromm and Maritza Martinez
Most recent2 June 2019 (2019-06-02)
Organised byQueens Lesbian & Gay Pride Committee

The Queens Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival is the second oldest and second largest pride parade in New York City.[1][2] It is held annually in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights, located in the New York City borough of Queens. The parade was founded by Daniel Dromm and Maritza Martinez to raise the visibility of the LGBTQ community in Queens and memorialize Jackson Heights resident Julio Rivera.[3] Queens also serves as the largest transgender hub in the Western hemisphere and is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.[4]

History

The controversy over Children of the Rainbow, along with the murder of Julio Rivera, was Queens’s Stonewall.

New York City Councilman Daniel Dromm[5]

Two events spurred the LGTBQ community of Jackson Heights to host its annual pride march: the first was a hate crime; the second, the rejection of a multicultural curriculum by Queens Community School District 24.

On July 2, 1990, Julio Rivera, a 29-year old gay Puerto Rican bartender, was murdered in the schoolyard of P.S. 69 in Jackson Heights. After a night of heavy drinking, three young white men (Erik Brown, Esat Bici, and Daniel Doyle) who were out hunting for "a drug dealer or a drug addict or a homo out cruising," lured Rivera into the schoolyard and punched, clubbed, hammered, and finally stabbed him to death.[6] In response to his murder, Rivera's relatives and friends mobilized New York City's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, holding a candlelight vigil at the site of the murder and putting pressure on the police department to find his killers.[5]

CUNY Student Performers at the Queens Pride Parade 2018

In 1992, Queens Community School District 24 rejected the Multicultural Children of the Rainbow Curriculum proposed by Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez of the New York City public school system. Children of the Rainbow was designed to teach children acceptance of New York City's diverse communities, but the president of District 24's board, Mary A. Cummins, called the guide "dangerously misleading lesbian/homosexual propaganda," using three among the hundreds of the recommended readings, Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy’s Roommate, and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride, as proof.[7] In response, Daniel Dromm, a public school teacher in District 24 Community proposed a family-friendly celebratory parade that would allow the Queens LGTBQ community to become visible. As he explained six years later, “I wanted people to know that lesbians and gay men were their family, friends, and neighbors.”[1]

2018 Queens Pride Performer

On June 6, 1993, the Inaugural Queens Lesbian and Gay Parade and Block Party Festival took place in Jackson Heights. Co-organized by Daniel Dromm and Cuban-born LGBTQ rights activist Maritza Martinez, it became the first successful event to be organized in any New York City borough outside Manhattan. Some 1,000 marchers participated, and thousands of spectators attended. More than a dozen LGBTQ organizations sponsored the event. City Councilman Tom Duane, Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, and activist Jeanne Manford served as Grand Marshals. A mostly local affair, the march included two separate moments of silence. At 1:25pm, the Grand Marshals of the parade called for moment of silence in front of P.S. 69 to memorialize Julio Rivera and all victims of lesbian/gay bashings. Then at 3:00pm, a second moment of silence was taken during the music festival to remember those who had died of AIDS.[8]

Ms. Colombia at St. Pat's For All parade 2013

In 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio became the first New York City mayor to serve as a Grand Marshal.[9]

Now an annual tradition, Queens Pride has attracted crowds of over 40,000 people, and is supported by politicians and sponsors such as the Queens Library, Uber, Go Magazine, Gaytravel.com, AIDS Center of Queens County, Gay City News, and Ibis Styles Hotels.[10]

One iconic Queens Pride participant was Ms. Colombia, who Daniel Dromm characterized as "a real Jackson Heights character." Born José Oswaldo Gómez, Ms. Colombia moved from Medellín to the United States in search for safety, as individuals who did not dress in gender specific ways were common targets for hate crimes in Colombia.[11] After being diagnosed with HIV in the 1980s, Gómez determined to live "day by day," becoming Ms. Colombia, whose colorful dressing and parade-walking became a celebration of being alive.[12] On October 4, 2018, New York City officials mourned her passing.[13][14]

Queens Lesbian & Gay Pride Committee

The parade's organizer, the Queens Lesbian & Gay Pride Committee (Queens Pride), is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit volunteer organization founded in 1992 that coordinates LGBTQ pride events in Queens, New York. In addition to the annual Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival, Queens Pride fosters youth programming and a Winter Pride Dinner Dance.[15]

Grand Marshals of the Queens Pride March

1993[8]

1994[16]

Crowd at the Multicultural Festival after the 2018 Queens Pride Parade
  • NYC Comptroller Alan Hevesi
  • Activist John J. Won, leader in the gay youth movement and AIDS education
  • Activist Candice Boyce, leader of African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change

1995 [17]

1996[18]

Caribbean Equality Project at the 2018 Queens Pride Parade

1997[19]

1998 [20]

  • NYC Council representative for Manhattan's Lower East Side Margarita Lopez
  • NYC Council representative for Harlem and South Bronx Phil Reed
  • Activist Betty Santoro

2000 [21]

  • Transgender activist Barbra Ann Perina, Program Director of Lambda Treatment and Recovery Program
  • Activist Angeline Acain, publisher of Gay Parent and Ripe Magazines

2001 [22]

  • CEO of West End Records Mel Cheren
  • LGBT organization for senior citizens Sage/Queens
  • LGBT organization for straight and questioning youth under 21 years of age Generation Q

2010 [23]

NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio at the 2013 Queens Pride Parade

2015[9]

2016[24]

  • Council representative Julissa Ferreras-Copeland
  • Activist Jessica Stern, OutRight Action International Executive Director
  • The AIDS Center of Queens County

2017[25]

  • Transgender activist and firefighter Brooke Guinan
  • Activist Krishna Stone, Director of Community Relations at Gay Men's Health Crisis
  • Geng Le, a leader for LGBT equality in the People's Republic of China and creator of Blued
  • American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

2018[26]

  • Queens Borough President Melinda Katz
  • Activist Elijah Betts, the youngest non-binary-identified leader at the LGTBQ organization Generation Q

2019[27]

  • Singer-songwriter Candy Samples
  • Activist Jesse Pasackow who, with Candy Samples, created the Candy Wrappers AIDS Walk New York City team
  • Queens Pride Lions Club
  • Mirror Beauty Cooperative, New York City's first trans-Latinx run business

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Starting Point of First Queens Pride Parade". NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. Retrieved 2019-03-28.
  2. ^ "Queens kicks off Pride Month with annual parade". QNS.com. Retrieved 2019-03-28.
  3. ^ Martinez, Arianna. "Queer Cosmopolis: The Evolution of Jackson Heights." In Planning and LGBTQ Communities: The Need for Inclusive Spaces. Ed. Petra L. Doan. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  4. ^ Christine Kim; Demand Media. "Queens, New York, Sightseeing". USA Today. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  5. ^ a b Gonzalez, David (2016-03-20). "At Site of Gay Man's Murder, a Street Corner Acknowledges Its Past". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  6. ^ Stanley, Alessandra (1991-11-18). "The Symbols Spawned by a Killing". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  7. ^ Myers, Steven Lee (1992-12-13). "IDEAS & TRENDS; How a 'Rainbow Curriculum' Turned Into Fighting Words". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  8. ^ a b Gomez, Chris. "Fighting for Change." The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens. Eds. Stephen Petrus and Soraya Ciego-Lemur. LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, LaGuardia Community College/CUNY, 2018.
  9. ^ a b "PHOTOS: Jackson Heights celebrates 23rd annual Queens Pride Parade and Festival". QNS.com. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  10. ^ "Sponsorship Package". Queens Pride. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  11. ^ No Your City (2015-04-13), No Your City 2: Episode 4 (Ms. Colombia), retrieved 2019-04-30
  12. ^ "New York LGBTQ Icon Ms. Colombia Found Dead". www.out.com. 2018-10-05. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
  13. ^ "Queens Honors LGBT Icon Ms. Colombia | WNYC | New York Public Radio, Podcasts, Live Streaming Radio, News". WNYC. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
  14. ^ Wortham, Jenna (2018-12-27). "Ms. Colombia Refused to Soften Her Queerness. She Paraded It". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
  15. ^ "Who We Are". Queens Pride. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  16. ^ "The 1994 Queens Pride Parade Grand Marshals."1994 Queens Pride Guide. Queens Gay and Lesbians United, 1994. LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. LaGuardia Community College.
  17. ^ "The 1995 Queens Pride Parade Grand Marshals." Queens Pride Guide. Queens Gay and Lesbians United, 1995. LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. LaGuardia Community College.
  18. ^ "The 1996 Queens Pride Parade Marshals." Queens Pride Guide. Queens Gay and Lesbians United, 1996. LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. LaGuardia Community College.
  19. ^ "The 1997 Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade Grand Marshals." Queens Pride Guide. Queens Gay and Lesbians United, 1997. LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. LaGuardia Community College.
  20. ^ "The 1998 Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade Grand Marshals." Queens Pride Guide. Queens Gay and Lesbians United, 1998. LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. LaGuardia Community College.
  21. ^ "Year 2000 Grand Marshals." Queens Pride Guide. Queens Gay and Lesbians United, 2000. LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. LaGuardia Community College.
  22. ^ "Pride Parade Grand Marshals Announced." Queens Pride Guide. Queens Gay and Lesbians United, 2001. LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. LaGuardia Community College.
  23. ^ "We Love a Parade: Jackson heights is Ready to Party." Queens Pride Guide. Queens Gay and Lesbians United, 2010. LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. LaGuardia Community College.
  24. ^ "Grand marshals announced for Queens Pride Parade in Jackson Heights". QNS.com. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  25. ^ Avery 4/5/2017, Dan. "Grand Marshals Announced For 2017 New York City Pride March | NewNowNext". www.newnownext.com. Retrieved 2019-04-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  26. ^ "Queens kicks off Pride Month with annual parade". QNS.com. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  27. ^ "Queens Pride Parade and Festival to Take Place June 2". Jackson Heights Post. 2019-05-31. Retrieved 2019-07-09.
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