More than 100 organizations and thousands of attendees gathered at Robert Church Park and Beale Street Saturday, June 3 for the Memphis Pride Festival and Pride Parade hosted by Mid-South Pride. 

The festival comes on the third day of Pride Month and on the same day Federal Judge Thomas L. Parker ruled against the Adult Entertainment Act, more commonly referred to as the drag ban and passed by Tennessee legislators, as unconstitutional.

Vanessa Rodley is the president of Mid-South Pride. Rodley said Memphis LGBTQ activists have been organizing Pride events in some form or another since 1976 and the parade has grown exponentially since.

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“It’s expanded from a little picnic and a parade to about 50,000 people Downtown in Robert Church Park,” Rodley said. “It’s an amazing show of color, inclusivity and diversity.”

And colorful it was by midday Saturday with locals and out-of-towners donning rainbow-colored attire and accessories as they perused festival booths and nearby Beale Street. Many attendees also carried rainbow flags of varying shapes and sizes.

Sister Kat Ion is vice president of the Memphis chapter of The Blue Suede Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Wearing a nuns’ habit with a sparkling periwinkle train and a “Love Wins” pin, Ion noted the timing of the Pride parade and ruling on the drag ban.

“I’m somewhat happy and somewhat disappointed to say drag is officially not a crime,” Ion said. 

Ion said despite the conflicting discourse on the subject of drag and LGBTQ rights, drag can be a tool for self-expression and self-discovery. 

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“Drag helps you understand how you want to present yourself in a judgment-free zone,” Ion said. “Drag as an artform is open for everybody, and it is for everybody because when we let laws tell us how to present ourselves, we lose our authenticity and our autonomy.

“It’s not just a queer issue. It’s a humanitarian issue.”

As the Pride parade kicked off just after 1 p.m. attendees rushed to the barricades on Beale to watch the eye-catching floats and flamboyant performers. 

Andrea Fincher, 42, is an outreach specialist at The Haven in Memphis. Fincher sat in the back of a gray Dodge Ram pickup painted with the phrases “Be Love” and “Love is Love” in rainbow colors on the side. 

“This is our Pride truck,” Fincher said. “We support ‘love is love’ and everybody living in their own truth.” 

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Fincher was relieved after finding out about the ruling and said the positivity radiating from Beale Street during the parade was contagious. 

“It’s the most amazing feeling in the world to see everybody being comfortable enough to be totally themselves out there during the parade today,” Fincher said. “It’s all of our hard work and things we’ve been fighting for coming to fruition.”

As the Haven Pride truck rode down Beale and Fincher began throwing rainbow-colored teddy bears into the cheering crowd, parade first timer Christina Bradley stood curbside with her children cheering on the colorful display.

With a rainbow-colored heart painted on her left cheek and sporting a smile, Bradley noted she has loved ones that are part of the LGBTQ community, and the show of support Downtown was invigorating.

“This is a great sign for humanity where we can all come together and it doesn’t matter your gender, your orientation or anything,” Bradley said. “It’s about who you are as a person inside to me.”

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QCG Productions had possibly the most eye-catching display of the parade with a Cirque de Soliel style float. A performer wearing a turquoise unitard and oversized sunglasses posed in a Hula-Hoop atop an elevated pole while other QCG participants danced beneath.

Bradley added the parade itself was quite a colorful and exciting experience. 

“The parade is awesome and I didn’t realize it would be so cute,” Bradley said. “I mean there is a pink police car that just went by.” 

Rodley noted Saturday’s Pride Parade was the largest in Mid-South Pride history and said it was an interesting coincidence considering Saturday’s ruling. 

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“We’re unbelievably excited they chose to release that information before we kicked off our festival and parade,” Rodley said. “It adds magnitude to Pride itself.”

Sponsors for Memphis Pride Festival include First Horizon Bank, Nike and Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare. Participating organizations included Neshoba Church, Suntrust Bank, the Memphis Grizzlies and Central Station Hotel. To learn more about Mid-South Pride, click here. 

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