In a symbol of the Trump era, #ResistMarch replaces iconic LA Pride parade
Tens of thousands of people are expected to take to the streets Sunday in Hollywood and West Hollywood in a human rights march that will replace the iconic LA Pride parade.
The parade has long been a bellwether of the LGBTQ community’s heartaches and victories, from the AIDS crisis to same-sex marriage. From the first parade in 1970 — which the city’s police commission tried to stop, warning that participants could be assaulted — it evolved into a colorful, festive event that celebrated the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities.
But on Sunday, the parade will be replaced with what can best be described as a symbol of the Trump era — a protest march, complete with a hashtag in its name: the #ResistMarch.
“This year, the LGBTQ community is lending our iconic rainbow flag to anyone who feels like their rights are under threat and to anyone who feels like America’s strength is its diversity, ” said Brian Pendleton, who organized the march. “The political climate we find ourselves in has driven us to galvanize and unite.”
This #ResistMarch, Pendleton said, was inspired by the massive women’s marches that took place the day after President Trump’s inauguration. People felt the need to make a statement that “we will resist being driven back into the closet by regressive policies, ” he said.
In many ways, organizers said, the march gets back to the roots of the original parade, which was organized to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the uprising at the Stonewall Inn in New York City in 1969 and to publicly acknowledge the growing LGBTQ rights movement.
Like this year’s march, the first parade started at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue in the city of Los Angeles. In later years, LA Pride would take place entirely in West Hollywood.
The #ResistMarch comes a year after Christopher Street West, the nonprofit that organizes the annual event, tried, controversially, to rebrand LA Pride as a music festival in a bid to woo millennials. Protesters who organized under the moniker #NotOurPride derided the event as a commercialized “gay Coachella.”
Michael Oliveira, an archivist with the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at USC who has studied LA Pride, said the march seems like a natural evolution in a tense time, amid concern over national and state policy and disturbing reports of violence against LGBTQ people in Chechnya and elsewhere.
“It speaks to what’s happening in the community, ” Oliveira said. “We’ ve seen a rise in hate crimes, a rise in attacks in the U. S. and around the world, and a lack of any sort of leadership.”
The march, he said, is “giving people another opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with what is going on with the Trump administration.”
A long list of special guests — including U. S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) , Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and comedian Chris Rock — is scheduled to speak at the end of the march, near West Hollywood Park.
hailey.branson@latimes.com
Twitter: @haileybranson
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