We will have pride in our Oregon community all through the summer and beyond!
In the month of June we celebrate LGBTQ Pride as a movement. We also commemorate and honor the Stonewall Riots. As we celebrate the wonderful accomplishments of the equality movement it is important to take pause and think about those in our communities who are often left out or unheard.
While Pride Foundation is proud of our commitment in the fight for Marriage Equality in the Evergreen state, issues of inequity and exclusion extend past marriage and influence many others across our community. From our transgender brothers and sisters, varying communities of color, and our aging LGBTQ populations; we must and will do better for ourselves and for each other.
Pride Foundation is going to be at many of the Pride Festivals around the Beaver state and we hope to see you there. Our first stop was on June 9 in Bend, the following weekend we were in City of Roses for Portland Pride. We take a little break from full-on festivals in July and then it’s down to the land of the Ducks where will be in Eugene on August 11, with our last two stops being in the gorgeous coastal town of Lincoln City on September 9, and finishing up our tour in Ashland at Southern Oregon Pride. Be sure to stop by and enter our raffle to win a mini grant for a local non-profit working for LGBTQ equality.
As we celebrate this year, let’s consider the great work we’ve accomplished together. Our donors, volunteers, grantees scholars, and community leaders who joined us around our shared commitment to social justice make the impossible: possible. For that we are forever grateful. However, let us not forget how far we’ve come and how far we have to go. As we participate in those parade marches across the state as they did over 40 years ago on Christopher Street, let us think about what we can do to make our tomorrows a little bit better than the last, and remember as the late Harvey Milk once said, “Hope is never silent”. I’m curious to know, “What do you have pride in?”
Jett Johnson is Pride Foundation’s Regional Development Organizer in Oregon. Email Jett to tell him what makes you prideful and for any other Oregonian Pride Foundation inquiries.