On Thursday, June 1, Greenbelt raised the pride flag to mark the commencement of Pride Month. On Saturday, June 3, the city held its second annual Pride Fest, which included, for the first time, a Pride Parade from the playground by the Spellman overpass on Gardenway down to Roosevelt Center.
Maryland State Comptroller Brooke Lierman spoke to the crowd from atop playground equipment prior to the march and thanked participants for standing up for equality for the LGBTQIA community, emphasizing that “every single person in this state is valued and loved and can love whomever they choose to.”
The Greenbelt Honk! Situation played as the crowd marched to the city center. The Parade was led by Grand Marshals Kellen Cole, 10, and Delegate Ashanti Martinez, who attended their first pride fest last year. Martinez was appointed to the Maryland House of Delegates in February and is the first openly gay person to represent Prince George’s County in the Maryland General Assembly. Greenbelt Mayor Emmett Jordan and Councilmembers Kristen Weaver and Silke Pope also marched in the Parade.
Organizer and Councilmember Ric Gordon marched beside the glamorous drag queen, CoCo. Gordon estimated there were over 200 participants at this year’s events, doubling the number from last year.
U.S. Representative Glenn Ivey, speaking to the crowd at Roosevelt Center, introduced some seriousness amidst the celebratory atmosphere, noting that though Greenbelt’s pride celebration had grown, “we’ve got a lot of bad activity going on too, especially in Florida,” referencing bans on instruction about sexual orientation and identity in schools, colloquially called a “Don’t Say Gay” law, as well as the DeSantis administration’s laws put forward to ban gender-affirming treatments, regulate bathroom usage and curtail drag shows.
“Unlike some of our counterparts in other states we are going to say here in Maryland we do respect trans kids,” said Delegate Nicole Williams during her comments.
Taylor Cantwell Cole, mother of the young co-marshal Kellen, and clinical director of the Choice Clinical Services, a sponsor of Pride Fest, said she was incredibly proud of her children, who participated in the events, and said of Greenbelt, “To get to grow up in a city where you are seen, loved, acknowledged and honored for being you is exactly why we live here.”
Pride Month is celebrated annually in June to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising, which began on June 28, 1969, with the police raid on The Stonewall Inn, a popular bar for the trans and gay community, to perform gender checks and confirm cross-dressing. The patrons resisted and several days of protests began. One year later, people from the LGBT community gathered to commemorate the uprising and parades that took place in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. The following year more cities held parades and today June brings pride parades in cities across the U.S. and the world.
