To Do Today: Boston Pride Parade and Festival
A time to celebrate the area’s LGBTQ community
The annual Boston Pride Parade and Festival is this Saturday, June 8. The parade kicks off at noon at Copley Square and ends at the festival at City Hall Plaza, featuring food, live entertainment, and more than 120 vendors. Photo by Marilyn Humphries
What? Boston Pride Parade and Festival
When? Saturday, June 8, from 11 am to 6 pm
Where? The parade starts in Copley Square at noon. The festival is at City Hall Plaza, One City Hall Square, Boston, from 11 am to 6 pm.
How much? Admission is free.
This year’s parade and festival, with the the theme “Looking Back, Loving Forward,” commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, one of the pivotal moments in the battle for LGBTQ rights. The parade begins at Copley Square and winds its way through the Back Bay, South End, and Beacon Hill, ending at the Boston Pride Festival on City Hall Plaza. A series of Stonewall 50 Banners will recognize specific locations that had a significant role in the Boston LGBTQ community’s fight for equality and dignity. One banner commemorates BU’s George Sherman Union, where the BU Student Homophile League, the first gay college group in the area to hold openly advertised meetings for the college community on a regular basis, met, starting in 1969. The meetings attracted students from all around Boston and Cambridge.
The culmination of Boston Pride Week is the Pride Festival, which runs from 11 am to 6 pm. This year’s event, in keeping with tradition, will be a mix of political rallying, live music, food, and more than 120 exhibitors—including local and national LGBTQ not-for-profit organizations, grassroots campaigns, and queer-owned small businesses providing health, education, and other services. Highlights include a free Pride Concert from noon to 6 pm, headlined by Beth Sacks, Robin S., and Todrick Hall, the Festival Bar from noon to 7 pm, and interactive sessions with an owl from the New England Zoo at the Family Fun Zone.
Find more information about festival activities here.
Abigail Freeman (COM’19) can be reached at anfree@bu.edu.
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