News

South End streets fill with Pride

by Michele D.  Maniscalco
Wednesday Jun 13, 2018

Sports teams, dance clubs, marching bands, political candidates, high school clubs, church groups, corporate retinues and jubilant individuals, couples and friends of all ages proudly marched down Clarendon Street, across Tremont and up Berkeley Street in Boston's Pride Parade on Saturday June 9.

The sun's glow amplified the kaleidoscope of colors in the rainbow flags and feather boas as well as costumes of all descriptions that dazzled thousands of onlookers lining the route.

Among over 300 organizations participating in the parade were groups from across the neighborhood and the city including the South End Historical Society and the Animal Rescue League of Boston; Fenway Community Health Center, the MSPCA, Dot Out, the Old South Church and the Home for Little Wanderers; and dozens of organizations from around greater Boston. Among the student groups were gay-straight student alliances from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, King Philip Regional High School and Stoneham High School and a truck-full of rainbow-festooned students from Wheaton College in Norton.

Boston Pride Hockey and the Boston Red Sox. The Boston Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence called out religious intolerance with marchers and effigies in nun habits and signs reading "Resist Guilt" and "Resist Hate."

South End based on-line retailer Wayfair and Citizens Bank were among the many corporate participants, and as a counterpoint, a man carried a rainbow sign reading "Our flag is not your ad. Pride ? Profit." Lawmakers including Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey; US representative Joseph Kennedy III (4th-MA); Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey; state representatives Byron Rushing (9th Suffolk) and Liz Malia (11th Suffolk); Mayor Martin J. Walsh and city councilors Michael Flaherty, Ed Flynn, Ayanna Pressley, Michelle Wu and Josh Zakim walked in the parade, as did gubernatorial hopeful Jay Gonzalez and Gretchen Van Ness, candidate for the 14th Suffolk seat in the State House currently held by incumbent Angelo M. Scaccia.

The 2018 theme of Rainbow Resistance, which signified countering discriminatory government policies and rising intolerance toward LGBTQ people and people of color, struck a chord with visiting leaders from around the country in Boston for the National Conference of Mayors. Among approximately 100 mayors joining the parade was Buddy Dyer of Orlando, who saw his city through dark days after the murder of 49 patrons of the Pulse nightclub, a tragedy that shook the LGBTQ community and the nation at large in 2016. Another issue looming in the minds of many marchers was last week's Supreme Court ruling upholding a Colorado bakery's refusal to provide a wedding cake to a same-sex couple.

While a collision between two police motorcycles along the parade route in Beacon Hill injured two police officers and an elderly woman, the parade progressed through the South End with no apparent incident.