Monday 29 June 2009

My First Pride March


In 1989 in Winnipeg, I walked in my first Pride March. There were only about 300 of us who walked on that day 20 years ago. It pissed rain the entire way from Vimy Ridge Park down Broadway Avenue to the Manitoba Legislature (the original parade route in the early years of the Winnipeg march). People yelled abuse at us from their balconies as we went by and drivers waiting in their cars flipped us the bird.

Since then, I've walked in a lot of bigger and better Pride Marches, but there's always something special about your very first time, isn't there!

[Watercolour painting entitled "Rainy Day Blues" by artist Debra Halprin]

3 comments:

Caroline said...

Pride Marches are so much fun! I used to go when I lived in Chicago...It was this past weekend and so many of my friends went.

yellowdoggranny said...

I have a feeling if we had a pride parade in west, they would think it was for being czech not gay..

Riot Kitty said...

Mr. RK, who is a bit crowd phobic, marched with me in our parade here and there were 50,000 people! Pretty cool.