Capital City Pride | |
---|---|
Genre | Pride parade and festival |
Frequency | Annual |
Location(s) | Olympia, Washington |
Founded | 1991 |
Area | South Puget Sound, Washington |
Filing status | 501(c)(3) |
Website | http://www.capitalcitypride.net |
Capital City Pride in Olympia, Washington is a non-profit organization that hosts LGBTQ events, the largest of which is the annual two-day Capital City Pride festival and parade, held in June. [1] The festival draws about 15,000 people each year. [2]
The Olympia Pride festival and rally are hosted to celebrate the LGBT communities; to honor civil rights gains in the past year and to highlight youth activists and honor long-time activists for their commitments. Entertainment and the pride parade are highlights of the day. The Olympia Pride festival has grown over the years and now approximately 12,000 to 15,000 people attend the contemporary pride festivals. [3] [4] The festival is funded through private fundraising and sponsorship, grants and tourism promotion funds.
The organization annual budget is approximately $40,000.
Capital City Pride began as a grass roots organization in 1991. By 2000, it began to operate under the auspices of the Olympia Rainbow Center while operating as an independent group with a committee and elected officers. The organization expanded their marketing and sponsorship work in 2007 and 2008.
Since 2020 the organization has been under new management and is slowly transitioning to become OLYWA PRIDE. [1]
Prior to 1990, Pride parades were held in the relative safety of large cities. In 1991, Olympia become the first small town outside of Seattle to host a Pride event. [1] The initial group of organizers included Evergreen State College [1] students Vikki Marinelli, Tod Streater, Kelly Hawk and Judith Samuels and community-based people Sid Evans and Michael Murphy, and Anna Schlecht. Together, their efforts produced the first Olympia Pride March that lead from Marathon Park and ended with a rally at the State Capital, drawing a crowd of over 300 people. [2] [5] [4]
The 1992 Pride Rally and march were organized by a new group of organizers whose efforts were chronicled in a documentary titled, "Small Town Pride" produced by Olympia-based film maker Marilyn Freeman. By 1993, Capital City Pride was founded with the sole purpose of hosting the annual Pride events.
Over time the march's more political tone shifted a more celebratory one. [5]
Traditionally, The Capital City Pride parade and festival was held on a Saturday, but was moved to Sunday in 2007. In 2010, the festival grew to two full days.
In 2016, the annual Pride Parade in downtown Olympia drew over 20,000 spectators, many of whom were first-time attendees who came to show their support of the LGBT community following the Orlando massacre.
A pride parade is an event celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) social and self-acceptance, achievements, legal rights, and pride. The events sometimes also serve as demonstrations for legal rights such as same-sex marriage. Most occur annually throughout the Western world, while some take place every June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, which was a pivotal moment in modern LGBT social movements. The parades seek to create community and honor the history of the movement. In 1970, pride and protest marches were held in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco around the first anniversary of Stonewall. The events became annual and grew internationally. In 2019, New York and the world celebrated the largest international Pride celebration in history: Stonewall 50 - WorldPride NYC 2019, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, with five million attending in Manhattan alone. Pride parades occur in urban locations worldwide, incl. cities or urban areas in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Israel, Japan, Mexico and the United States.
Capital Pride is an annual LGBT pride festival held in early June each year in Washington, D.C. It was founded as Gay Pride Day, a one-day block party and street festival, in 1975. In 1980 the P Street Festival Committee formed to take over planning. It changed its name to Gay and Lesbian Pride Day in 1981. In 1991, the event moved to the week prior to Father's Day. Financial difficulties led a new organization, One In Ten, to take over planning of the festival. Whitman-Walker Clinic (WWC) joined One In Ten as co-sponsor of the event in 1997, at which time the event's name was changed to Capital Pride. Whitman-Walker became the sole sponsor in 2000. But the healthcare organization came under significant financial pressures, and in 2008 turned over producing duties to a new organization, Capital Pride Alliance.
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