Boston Pride Marshals 2009
The Boston Pride Committee is pleased to introduce the 2009 Pride Marshals:
- Grand Marshal: Pathways to Wellness
- Honorary Marshal: Barbara Jordan
- Celebrity Marshal: Melissa Etheridge
Grand Marshal: Pathways to Wellness
Pathways to Wellness is an award-winning nonprofit holistic health center offering acupuncture, shiatsu bodywork and Chinese herbs. Open to all people needing care, Pathways’ practitioners work collaboratively in a team environment and in conjunction with Western medical professionals to offer an integrated approach to care.
2009 marks Pathways 20th year of providing equal access to care to all those in need and of providing free care to people with HIV/AIDS.
Pathways’ therapies are used to treat a wide array of conditions including pain, fatigue, allergies, insomnia, stress, depression, headaches, sports injuries, infertility, and many more. Pathways’ highly trained and licensed clinicians are among the best in the country and have extensive experience treating patients with complex health conditions.
Pathways offers a variety of low-cost and discount programs to ensure that its care is accessible to all including community-style acupuncture, insurance discounts, sliding-scale rates, and a student intern clinic.
Visit Pathway to Wellness' website for more information, or call 617-859-3036.
Honorary Marshal: Barbara Jordan
Barbara Charline Jordan (February 21, 1936–January 17, 1996) was an American politician from Texas. She served as a congresswoman in the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 1979. Jordan was mentioned as a possible running mate to Jimmy Carter in 1976, and that year she became the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Her speech in New York that summer was ranked 5th in "Top 100 American Speeches of the 20th century" list and was considered by many historians to have been the best convention keynote speech in modern history until the 2004 keynote by Barack Obama. Despite not being a candidate Jordan received one delegate vote (0.03%) for president at the convention. Jordan was a lesbian with a longtime companion of more than 20 years, Nancy Earl; Jordan never publicly acknowledged her sexual orientation, but in her obituary, the Houston Chronicle mentioned her longtime relationship with Earl. After Jordan's initial unsuccessful statewide races, advisers warned her to become more discreet and not bring any female companions on the campaign trail. Jordan met Earl, an educational psychologist who would become an occasional speechwriter in addition to Jordan's partner, on a camping trip in the late 1960s.
Visit Congress.gov for more information.
Photo credit: Library of Congress.
The Boston Pride Committee Honorary Marshalship is a posthumous award given each year to a member of the LGBT community for recognition of their work on behalf of the LGBT community. This award was created in 2006 to honor people in our history whose strength, courage and dedication have helped shape and advance the LGBT community in the hopes of ensuring that we enjoy fair treatment, equal rights and on-going respect of our global community.
Celebrity Marshal: Melissa Etheridge
Please note that due to a scheduling conflict, Melissa Etheridge will not be attending Boston Pride.
Melissa Lou Etheridge is an Academy Award-winning and two-time Grammy Award-winning American rock singer-songwriter and musician. Etheridge is famous as a gay rights activist, having come out publicly as a lesbian in January 1993 at the Triangle Ball, a gay/lesbian celebration of President Bill Clinton's first inauguration. She is also a committed advocate for environmental issues and in 2006, she toured the US and Canada using biodiesel.
Visit MelissaEtheridge.com for more information.
Photo credit: Wikipedia - licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike.