Proud Member: Winston-Salem Council rep on being proud of Pride

“We still don’t know who did it,” said Winston-Salem Southwest Ward representative Kevin Mundy about the person or persons who, in the early morning of June 9, vandalized the Pride Month banner at City Hall.

“The police are working on the assumption that it was a premeditated hate crime, rather than a spontaneous act. They knew what they were doing and why they were doing it. We don’t have security cameras aimed at the outside of the building, which is a failure on our part, but I will keep working on that.”

Mundy, who became the city’s first openly gay council member after receiving 92.8% of the vote in the November 2020 general election, said he was glad the vandals didn’t rip the banner to shreds.

“They cut it once, right down the middle, which means we were able to temporarily repair it and put it back up. Honestly, if you didn’t walk behind the banner to see the tape, you couldn’t tell it had been damaged. At least they left us a nice clean cut for us to repair.”

The banner has been replaced, but the temporarily repaired one wasn’t thrown away.

“There’s a person who would like to keep the damaged banner and use that in an art project involving multiple people from the community as kind of a healing process. They’re in the preliminary stages of figuring out how to do that, but I think it’s a good idea and we’re happy to donate it.”

The vandalism occurred eight days after the City of Winston-Salem was heavily criticized by the local LGBTQ community for removing an image posted to its Facebook page to mark the beginning of Pride Month. The graphic, which placed the city’s o cial logo (a blue overlapping W and S) against the rainbow flag background, went live as the city page’s profile photo at 9:45 a.m. on June 1.

“I like how open-minded and progressive WS is compared to other places!” was the first comment. But after the image was replaced by one depicting the city logo against a plain white background, another commenter accused Winston-Salem officials of having “pandered to haters.”

At 10:09 a.m. on June 2, an image of the Pride flag was reposted to the city’s Facebook page, but this time not accompanied by the city’s logo. It was accompanied by the following statement:

“The city apologizes for the hurt that was created yesterday among members of the LGBTQ+ community when an unauthorized version of the city logo with a Pride background was briefly posted on our Facebook page and then removed. We should have immediately posted an explanation of why we replaced the logo and stated that the city fully supports Pride Month. We mishandled the situation and regret it.”

That same day, an image of the “June is Pride Month” banner in front of the courthouse was posted as the page’s cover photo. A week later, the banner in that photo, was vandalized.

Mundy called the controversy over the profile photo “really frustrating to me,” but also stressed that “I stand behind my marketing department, who do a great job.” He faulted unnamed “decision makers” for “not understanding how important it is the move quickly when it comes to social media.”

“I got a call 10 minutes after this happened. Somebody from Pride got in touch with me and I told them I was on it. But then the city took almost the rest of the day to respond to complaints about the graphic having been removed, and what they put out did not read well to me or my community. It never acknowledged that the city was wrong to take it down and not put a replacement back up.”

He acknowledged how some might have drawn the wrong conclusions from the sequence of events.

“I understand how my people, meaning the LGTBQ community, would go, ‘Yay, they’re supporting us!’ And then, seeing it removed after some negative comments from people who call it sinful, their logical conclusion would be ‘Oh, man, the city folded!’ And that’s what people thought.”

Mundy stated the image was not removed due to anti-LGBTQ complaints.

“The city has for many years been a sponsor of Pride. The city council rides in the parade. We’re not concerned about the religious right or anyone else who says they think this is wrong, because it is the right thing to do, just like civil rights were in the 1960s. Sometimes, just as the federal government did then, we have to say, no, the majority doesn’t always rule, and we’re doing the right thing.”

Instead, he said that one or more well- meaning city employees had not understood the requirements for how the City of Winston-Salem logo could be displayed.

“What I mean by that is, if you’ve ever looked at a corporate logo or any brand marketing, there’s a list of rules on how you can use it, what the minimum size is, what the PMS color background you can put it on, etc. The city is like that, too. Somebody created a real cool graphic of the city logo against the Pride background. The person who created the composite image didn’t know that wasn’t allowed. It was a marketing technical error by someone not totally schooled on the correct usage of our city logo. They did a treatment that the city realized was against the rules and said take it down, but then the city missed the next step of immediately putting up a version that complied with those rules.”

Mundy thinks the city should have not only explained the issue sooner and more clearly, but also apologized more directly. But as a gay man, he’s very proud of Winston-Salem’s support for Pride.

“I suspect that some of my fellow members of the gay community disagree with me. This may be a generational thing, as I’m on the tail end of being a baby boomer, which I almost hate to admit lest it invite ‘okay boomer!’ replies! But I understand both generational viewpoints. I grew up in a time when I never thought gay couples would ever be allowed to marry. But a 25-year-old today didn’t come through that, and they’re understandably impatient and want more. Good for them! If it wasn’t for the 25-year-olds, gay people my age might be too complacent.”

He’s also proud of Winston-Salem’s acceptance not only of the LGBTQ community but of members of that community in leadership jobs.

“I don’t know anyone who lost such a job because they were gay. That’s not been true in a lot of cities, especially in the South, where if you don’t play the straight part, you don’t get to work for the Chamber of Commerce or United Way or whatever, and you have to convince people you’re either straight or your gayness is so well-hidden it won’t be a problem in your job. So, we’ve gotten beyond that, and since same-sex marriage came about, we’ve started seeing there are more walls here we need to tear down.”

He also described how the year of his election also marked a major turning point, with the city enacting an ordinance prohibiting anti-gay discrimination.

“In 2020, there was a female couple that wanted to get married. They tried to rent a special event facility, but were told ‘Sorry, we don’t do same-sex weddings.’ They posted about that on social media. When I read that post, I thought, this is not going to happen in my town, and we used that as the springboard for why we needed a non-discrimination ordinance in WinstonSalem. Some folks claimed we didn’t need one due to constitutional protections, as the Supreme Court has said that the word “sex” covers anything that has to do with sexual orientation. But if that’s the case, why are there bakers who can refuse to bake a gay wedding cake? They wouldn’t be able to turn down a Black or interracial couple. Only serving straight customers is like only serving white customers.”

Mundy also feels it’s crucial to resist what he characterizes as the reactionary turn taken by both state and federal courts.

“We’re seeing the current SCOTUS overturn laws that once seemed set in stone, and it scares the Hell out of me.

And at the state level, the Republicans are spitting out a tremendous amount of anti-gay legislation as they pander to the less-populated rural areas that support their homophobia. Most folks in North Carolina do not feel that way, but the GOP has gerrymandered districts and continues to try to strip power from the governor’s o ce in order to give themselves and their small base disproportionate power.”

Not only as a gay man but one who deliberately moved to what he thought was a more tolerant state, Mundy finds this particularly disturbing.

“I’m originally from South Carolina, and one reason I moved one state over is that North Carolina was so progressive. But not much anymore, and we’re really in danger of tracking right along with South Carolina and Florida. When I came here in 1987, North Carolina would not have even considered such legislation, much less have passed it. But if you look at the hate legislation that is coming through now, the banning books and historical facts, the hysteria about drag queens while doing nothing about gun deaths, we’re going full South Carolina, at least in terms of state legislation.”

Despite his concerns for his adopted state, Mundy is proud of the city he serves and its stance on Pride.

“Everyone on our city council supports it, just as our anti-discrimination ordinance passed unanimously. Our city sta is walking the talk, except for that one day we took that logo down.” !

IAN MCDOWELL is the author of two published novels, numerous anthologized short stories, and a whole lot of nonfiction and journalism, some of which he’s proud of and none of which he’s ashamed of.

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Band Schedule

JUNE 29

Turpentine Shine Trio

Summer is o cially here and the summer festival season is once again popping o .

In Winston-Salem, that means the time is right for dancing in streets painted rainbow as Pride Winston-Salem’s annual festival and parade pops all over the Arts District.

The Historic Scha er Inn will host a cocktail sandwich of o cial Pride WS events: including the kicko party, hosted by CC Labriel; and the “pre-party to the afterparty” evening cocktail interlude on June 24. For more information on Pride WS events, visit www.pridews.org.

The Pulse Vodka Pride Parade will roll out the festival proper, running down 4th Street at 11 a.m. on June 24. WFMY2’S Amber Lake will emcee one of the two stages along Trade St. (at the intersections with 5th and 7th) that will host entertainers throughout the afternoon. PrideWS’s o cial afterparty goes down with bands and double-decker dance