BY JAYNE CLARK
THERE IS NO WAY TO MISS WASHINGTON, D.C.’S CAPITAL
PRIDE WEEK. IT’S VIBRANT MIX OF BIG EVENTS, LOCAL
PARTIES AND SMALL MOMENTS THAT EMBRACE THE
DIVERSITY OF THE CITY AND PROMOTE AN INCLUSIVE
CULTURE AS PART OF LGBTQ PRIDE MONTH.
“Pride is for everybody. It’s about having pride in yourself and
hopefully if you do, you’ll have pride in others and let them live their
truth,” says Ryan Bos, executive director of the Capital Pride Alliance,
which organizes the event.
Scheduled for June 7-9, D.C.’s 43rd Capital Pride Week is one of the
nation’s top five pride events and one of the few remaining whose
main events are free — like a concert festival that features Alessia
Cara, winner of the 2018 Best New Artist Grammy, and Troye Sivan.
In 2017, more than 500,000 attended Capital Pride over the course
of four days. But dozens of other North American cities, from
Albuquerque to Yonkers, also stage annual pride events. The first was
in 1970 in New York to mark the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall
riots. In 1969, a series of spontaneous protests erupted in the days
after a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich
Village. The demonstrations are considered a major catalyst that
sparked the gay rights movement.
HERE’S A GUIDE TO KEY 2018 CAPITAL PRIDE EVENTS.
FLYWASHINGTON.COM 70 SUMMER 2018
D.C. Pride Parade
Credit: Courtesy of washington.org