A Letter from the President of Nashville Pride

Dear Out & About Nashville readers,

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Nashville Pride, I want to wish you all the happiest of Prides! As we mark the beginning of our traditional Pride season, we must acknowledge that this is not the Pride we all know and love. This is not the way we wanted to celebrate. We had an incredible festival and parade planned but sadly, it wasn’t meant to be. Your health and safety is the most important thing to us. We could not in good conscience continue to plan for an event that might put your lives at risk.

Through the years Pride has become more than just a word to describe a feeling. It is a celebration, a movement, a homecoming, and space to be ourselves. We come together to create a community, to express our joy, to stand for justice and be visible. This year may be disappointing, and we may not have our 2-day outdoor festival in June, but we can still be proud!

Our LGBTQIA+ community has faced challenges greater than COVID-19, and we have constantly shown our resilience. We have marched for the right to be treated fairly and equally. We have joined together to demand our right to serve our country. We have demonstrated to secure our right to marry whomever we love, and we stand up to ensure all of our community is protected from discrimination at every level. We will unite with all of our colors to see our community through and into this new way of life with all of its challenges.

We thank all of those who have gone before us, teaching each of us to be proud and to love and believe in ourselves. As we mark the 50 th anniversary of the very first Pride March, we will remember those too numerous to name who made this possible for all of us. We are grateful for all of those who took to the streets of New York City in June of 1970 to mark the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. We are grateful to all who have marched in the 50 years since ensuring our community’s visibility and building our strength. We must never forget that our strength is in our diversity, that our table is big enough for all of us. We must draw on both our differences and our bonds of community to continue to work for our freedom to enjoy the rights we so justly deserve.

While we may not be able to have our traditional festival in June this year, we are working diligently to create and plan an alternative Pride celebration in the Fall of 2020. As we create more virtual experiences now and retool our festival to meet the demands of our new normal, I hope you will join in and find your own creative ways to celebrate your Pride.

In the meantime, we STILL remember; we STILL honor; we STILL are resilient; we STILL are engaged; and most importantly, we STILL are PROUD.

Wishing you all Happy Pride,

Paula D. Foster President, Nashville Pride Board of Directors