Dear Friends,

As we dive into summer, the Boston Pride Committee would like to send a tremendous thank you to everyone who participated in our 40th Anniversary Pride Week. We hope that you got a chance to attend some of our events leading up to, and including, Pride Weekend. Despite the downpour on Saturday, the smiling, cheering, and dancing in the streets was a true tribute to our community spirit!

The amount of time we spend planning the Parade, Festival and Sunday Block Parties is enormous, but we are also very proud of the wide range of other events that appear on our calendar. Some we produce ourselves and others we co-present with fellow community institutions like Queer Women of Color & Friends, the LGBT Aging Project, and Club Café, to name a few. We are grateful for these lasting partnerships and look forward to making new ones.

This year, in particular, we were excited to offer the Club Sizzle dance party for LGBT youth, an event we co-hosted with Delta Phi Upsilon, and that we’ll be adding permanently to our Pride Week roster. We were also inspired by our inaugural theme-based Pride Rally. While potential rain turned the event into something more resembling a panel discussion, the Stuart Street Playhouse was alive with discussion about key issues facing our community. Moving forward, we are committed to providing a forum for ongoing dialogue about the enduring importance of the Pride Movement.

While Pride Week itself is over, we will continue the commemoration of our 40th Anniversary with more events and activities throughout 2010, and we hope to see you around town. Stay tuned for the launch of a new and snazzy Pride website, some exciting special events (including VIP tickets to Margaret Cho!), and the unveiling of a re-organized Pride Committee with fun and easy ways for everyone to get involved. Of course, we’re not going to change everything. This fall also brings the return of our online community vote for your 2011 Pride Theme and Marshals, so get your nominations ready!

While we all know that Pride is not just a week in June, we’re here to make sure everyone remembers that! We cap off four decades of LGBT activism and progress with the hope that another 40 years won’t pass before we achieve true and full equality. Regardless, we will be here to serve and celebrate you.

All the best for a wonderful summer,

Keri A. Aulita

Deputy Director

Boston Pride Committee

Hello, all! Social Media Coordinator Liz here.  Just a quick check-in to let you know of a few updates to our calendar, and inquire as to how much everyone is loving Boston Pride Week 2010! I’ve also got photo and video of some of the events, just in case you’ve missed them!

UPDATES:
1. !!IMPORTANT LOCATION CHANGE!!

Potential rain won’t stop us from RALLYING. But it will make us do it
indoors!

The Riots to Rights Rally on Thursday, June 10 is moving to the Stuart
Sreet Playhouse so that if the skies open, the rain won’t interfere with
our important community dialogue.

Stuart Street Playhouse
200 Stuart Street, Boston

6pm Community Mingle | 7pm Rally | 8pm Film

Visit our website for more information: http://www.bostonpride.org/

2. 2010 Pride “Mini” Film Series

Let’s go to the movies! The LGBT Film Fest brings you the Pride Mini-Film
Festival. Three great films are on deck and promise to entertain and
enlighten.

Wednesday Night Film
“Auntie Mame” 7pm Cocktails | 8pm screening | Stuart Street Playhouse

Thursday Night Film
As part of Boston Pride’s “Riots to Rights Rally” there will be a
screening of “Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride” at the Stuart Street
Playhouse, 200 Stuart Street, Boston.
6pm Community Mingle | 7pm Rally | 8pm Film (Free)

Friday Night Film
“I Am Love”
8pm | MFA, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston

Now that we’re all updated, on to the fun stuff!

Flag Raising at City Hall:

Pride Day @ Faneuil Hall

2nd Annual King & Queen of Boston Pride Pageant (Q&A with one of the contestants!)

And that’s that!

Up tonight (Wednesday, June 9): our ever-popular PRIDE IDOL finals!  Join us at Club Cafe for all the fun!

Don’t forget to visit our website for all the updates, events, and our full calendar so you don’t miss a thing! Also, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

It’s finally here!  Boston Pride Week kicked off this Friday, June 4th at noon, when the Pride Committee came together to raise the rainbow flag over Boston’s City Hall Plaza!

From there, our 10-day celebration of this year’s theme, Riots to Rights, charges ahead!  We have a lot planned, so we hope you can keep up!

While most of you come from the greater Boston area to attend Boston Pride, many of you come from far away just to attend our fabulous events.  First, we’d like to say THANK YOU so much – it means the world to us that you’d travel from near and far to celebrate with us!

It’s a great time to remind you of all the great places to stay in Boston – if you haven’t booked your room yet, now is the time!  And, as an organization that values human rights of all kinds, we’d like to direct you to this website to find a hotel you can feel good about:  http://www.sleepwiththerightpeople.org/

The brain child of activist Cleve Jones (who, along with Stuart Milk, will be attending Boston Pride!), Sleep with the Right People is “a coalition between the LGBT community and UNITE HERE, a union representing over 300,000 hospitality and manufacturing workers across North America. Together, we fight for the fair and equal treatment of all individuals.”

Boston Pride would like to encourage you, if you haven’t booked your hotel already, to stay in a hotel that treats all their workers with dignity.  More information about how to get involved, as well as hotels that are doing things right can be found on the SWTRP website – and there’s quite a list!  Don’t forget to sign the pledge to Sleep with the Right People!

As this flashmob in San Francisco says:  Don’t get caught in a bad hotel!

Our website also has information about where to book hotels.  And, in honor of our Green Initiative, we encourage you to ditch the car and use Boston’s MBTA to get to all of our events.

Happy Pride!

Members of the Boston Pride Committee headed west  this past weekend to participate in Northampton’s First Dyke March on Friday and the NoHo Pride Prade & Festival the following day.  Deputy Director, Keri Aulita, spoke at the Dyke March and on Saturday, Board and Committee Members Malcolm Carey, Linda DeMarco, Wilfred Labiosa, Sylvain Bruni, Heather Mills, Liz Stewart and friends paraded a 10 foot white 40th Birthday cake down Main Street in honor of Boston Pride’s Anniversary Celebration.

*Actual letter received. Names have been changed and letter edited slightly.

Please consider clicking here to donate to Boston Pride to keep our community vibrant, active and involved!  Donations of any size are welcome!

Thursday, April 22 is Earth Day!

You may ask yourself, what does Earth Day mean to Boston Pride?

A LOT!

In 2008, Boston Pride was the first Pride to initiate a transversal effort to reduce its carbon footprint and become a greener event. The results were outstanding, with Parade and Festival trash volume cut in half, and Block Parties trash cut by two thirds! Boston Pride also invested in equipment to be reused year after year, and best practices were applied to the Pride Committee’s day to day activities.

In 2009, Boston Pride strengthened its Green Initiative by launching four specific efforts aimed at systematizing Boston Pride’s approach at being greener.  We also managed to reduce our waste by another 50%, and last year’s events saw over 80% of our waste being recycled!

In 2010, Boston Pride aims at developing these four efforts to their full potential, and make the 40th Celebration the greenest Pride ever!

For more information on our Green Initiative, visit our website.  Have questions, or want to help us be even greener?  Email green@bostonpride.org for details!

The Boston Pride Committee was proud to sponsor last weekend’s Northeast Regional LGBT Conference with Join the Impact MA, Equality Across America, GLSEN Mass, and Cambridge Welcoming Ministries.

Over 350 community organizers and activists from across the region participated in two days and two nights of workshops, debates, and discussions about the struggle for full LGBT equality. At the request of Boston Pride, Billy Urich from Connecticut Pride, presented a workshop on International LGBT Human rights issues.

Workshops covered topics in the areas of civil rights, LGBT history, issues facing our movement, and the tactics and strategies needed to achieve full federal equality for all.

Read more about the work JoinTheImpactMa is doing by visiting their website.

The Friends of GLBT Youth, Inc. will host a fundraiser for this year’s Massachusetts Youth Pride at Club Café, 209 Columbus Ave., Boston, on Monday, April 19th, from 8 p.m. until 11 p.m.

“Youth Pride is a tremendous opportunity for GLBT youth, their allies, and their families, to gather in an environment that festive and safe,” said Dr. Tim Kelliher, president of the Board of Directors of Friends of GLBT Youth. “We work hard to make Youth Pride both social and educational. Our fundraiser will enable us to make this year’s Youth Pride the best and strongest ever.”

The fundraiser is open to adults over 21. Admission is $10, and raffle tickets will be available for a variety of items donated by local businesses and artists. Tickets can be purchased by clicking here.  Also, please visit the event Facebook page by clicking here.

Club Café has donated their space for the event, and all proceeds raised will go directly to fund this year’s Massachusetts Youth Pride, which will take place Saturday, May 8th at the Boston Common.

If you can’t make it to the event, donations for Massachusetts Youth Pride may be sent to:
Friends of GLBT Youth
P.O. Box 960519
Boston, MA 02196-0519.

The Friends of GLBT Youth, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating homophobia and transphobia in order to allow all young gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people the opportunity to reach their full potential.

The History Project Exhibit / Photo: Marilyn Humphries

As we prepare to celebrate Boston Pride’s 40th Anniversary, in our upcoming e-newsletters, we will take a look back at some of the great moments in LGBT history.

In June 1970, members of several gay rights activist groups marched from Cambridge Common to Boston Common as part of a Vietnam War protest. That summer these same folks also commemorated the Stonewall riots of 1969 with the first Pride event in Boston.

On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first US State to honor same-sex marriage leading the way for the rest of the nation.

Of course so many other difficult and tragic, wonderful and inspiring events have taken place in our collective history over the past four decades. In conjunction with the History Project, together we will all reflect on where we’ve been and how far we’ve come, so stay tuned…