Good morning and welcome back. It’s now 8.41 the month of October in
Jacksonville celebrates the
history of the
lgbtq community.
>> It shines light on the
history of civil rights for
lesbians gays bisexuals
and transgenders like a number
of cities around the globe
Jacksonville celebrated the
lgbtq community with an annual
pride Festival this year’s
dates are October 5th. And
October 6th here to talk more
about the event is River city
pride board member Justin
Carver Justin, thank you so
much for coming in on this
Sunday morning. We’re less than
2 weeks out. From
this year’s. Best of all.
This year’s theme is to honor
the 50th anniversary of the
stonewall riots in New York
City. That’s correct. What is
happening here. In Jacksonville
this year we’re
prayed up.
>> Play by separate block party
and festival a over the course
of the weekend.
>> And for those who are not
familiar with the stonewall
riots. They happened back in 19
78 in New York City.
This was a response to serious
of spontaneous violent
demonstrations. By members of
the community. On police that
raided the stonewall Inn the
stonewall Inn was a safe haven
for those marginalized throughout the 50’s and 60’s it was very common for rates to
happen it was routine for them
to happen.
On the community throughout the
50’s and 60’s.
Here locally we have folks
who survived the stonewall
riots and they will be part of
this year’s celebration.
I will be grand marshal ing
this year’s pride parade on
October 5th. Those folks will
be joining us how can people
get involved if they want to
learn more about River city
pride has been around for 41
years, but there are many
people who have lived here
their entire lives throughout
Northeast, Florida who have
never heard about River
city pride River seep right.
It’s a local nonprofit
organization, a
>> we promote the fellowship
among the lgbtq in our allies
and support other local lgbt
organizations here
in Jacksonville. River city
prides. A basically the the
combination of a bunch of hard
work from all its members and
its countless volunteers.
Over the years and also the
loving support of the
Jacksonville community. A man
like SEC said we’ve been around
for 41 year. So we started to
reach back in 1978 9 years
after the stonewall riots
began.
>> Again the weekend kicks off
on the 5th with the parade
starting at 04:00PM in the
afternoon of course. It starts
in the
Riverside neighborhood.
>> Correct so at noon why kick
off with the can community
health block party. And then at
04:00PM the Bank of America
pride parade will
roll out at will a branch Park
a zigzag through Riverside and
then end in the block party
where the block party
continues with a local
entertainers in deejays until
about 10:00PM. And then
on Sunday.
We go to the winn-dixie pride
festival which is over the
Riverside arts market. We have
over a 125 local vendors
food trucks along with the kids
zone this year. We have an
amazing entertainment lined up
with local and nationally
recognized artists and
performers.
>> And it’s a lot of fun again.
We should mention this is
family friendly so bring out
the entire family.
>> Families there actually is a
a contest at the festival this
year.
>> This is video from last
year’s pride festival, I know
my colleague in co anchor
Ashley Spicer did a story out
there. We should mention also
this year CW 17 is the proud of
media sponsor of this event
along with me
being the grand marshal and I
have a whole team of folks
nearly 40 people joining the
marching in the parade, how
many people are participating
in this year’s parade. All
right now we have over 85
organizations signed up and you
can still sign up up until the
day of the great us, so we
would love to have it last year
we had over.
>> 3,000 people participate in
the parade
and this year is going to be
bigger and better as the years
go on it becomes bigger and
better right now being last
year my first festival
participating in it.
Everybody was saying that this
was the best one yet so we’re
hoping that the 41th one will
be even better going to be even
better awesome for more
information people can go where
to our facebook page instagram
our website, it’s a river city
pride dot org. Or just River