‘We are here to stay’: Pride draws crowds to Grand Rapids

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Downtown Grand Rapids was filled with music, vendors and plenty of rainbow flags Saturday for the city’s annual Pride festival.

Now in its 36th year, Grand Rapids Pride has become one of the city’s largest single-day events. It serves as a fundraiser for the Grand Rapids Pride Center.

“We’ve definitely gotten bigger,” Jazz McKinney, executive director of the Grand Rapids Pride Center and chair of the Grand Rapids Pride Festival, told News 8.

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The festival featured over 100 vendors, from food trucks to local artists. This year, special guests like Big Freedia — an artist who was featured on “Break My Soul” by Beyoncé — joined.

McKinney, who uses they/them pronouns, described the event as “a big old party.”

“We really just want to focus on making sure that we’re experiencing queer joy, allowing folks to be themselves, allowing folks to be in community with each other,” they said.

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Pride can be a Catch-22, McKinney said.

“Pride started as a riot and protest to brutality. And it still is that. It still is definitely making sure that folks understand that we deserve to be ourselves, we deserve to be who we are and be able to live out free and proud and happy,” they explained. “And so it definitely still is that and rooted in that, but (we) definitely have expanded. We wanted to focus more on queer joy as well, and not just the negative sides of other people’s reactions or anything like that.”

The goal, they said, is to have fun.

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“Let’s just be ourselves. Let’s enjoy ourselves,” McKinney said. “As you can see, it’s an amazing turnout. This is just showing the world that we won’t be stopped. We won’t be silenced. We are here, and we are here to stay.”

The festivities kicked off at noon and ran until 10 p.m. at Calder Plaza.

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