When most of the country breaks out the rainbow clothing and colorful parades, each June, summer heat is baking down on festivities. And while you won’t be pressed to find Pride celebrations in June, Durham’s LGBTQ Center holds its annual Pride celebrations in the fall, timed with cooler weather and students being back in town.
This year, the LGBTQ Center is leaning into its fall programming in the spirit of its ethos “Queer All Year,” as the center prepares for a week of celebrations starting September 27. The fall date aligns closely with LGBTQ History Month in October and National Coming Out Day on October 11.
The theme of Pride: Durham, NC, this year is “Always Forward, Never Straight: Preserving History, Coming Home.” This year’s Pride marks the 45th year since “Our Day Out,” North Carolina’s first Pride march, held in response to the antigay assault and murder of Ronald “Sonny” Antonevitch in 1981. A second march was held in Durham in 1986, and what became the NC Pride March traveled around the state for more than a decade, until Durham began hosting an annual event in 2000.
The LGBTQ Center is hosting a community protest and parade on October 3, preceded by a week of events that includes a food truck rodeo, a queer-history tour of downtown, a craft night, and a multi-faith service. Ahead of the programming, Jesse Huddleston, the director of development and community engagement at the LGBTQ Center and the chair of Pride: Durham, NC, spoke to the INDY about Durham’s history of queer resistance and this year’s messaging.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
On the history of Durham’s Pride movement:
In ‘81, it was our day out, and it was in response to the assault and murder of Sonny Antonovich. Folks wore bags over their heads. It wasn’t the kind of celebratory parade that we have today. I’ve seen some of the flyers, and there was a language of wearing costumes, and not in the sense of like, “Oh, be a version of yourself that’s fun and loud.” It was a costume to hide.
And that’s not to shame the history. That’s to understand where we come from. For them, even having one day out was powerful, because for so many of them, the posture was one of shame, of hiding, and that was how people stayed safe. That’s how people survived.
On the 45th anniversary of Durham’s first Pride march:
Forty-plus years ago, folks doing this were afraid for their careers, for their families, for their lives. And we have to continue moving forward in a way that ensures that every person, every child that grows up here, is so assured, and not just who they are as a whole dignified person, but what opportunities are available to them.
On what to expect from this year’s Pride parade:
It’s a march. It’s a protest. We’re gonna be in the streets. People will have signs and sing songs about justice, about their rights, and yes, we will have a good time. Yes, people will be dolled up. Yes, we will have all the colors and the rainbows, and the laughs and the smiles. Hopefully, we have beautiful weather. It’s not too hot, not too cold, not too rainy. You don’t want rain, but it will be a peaceful, nonviolent protest in the streets.
On being “queer all year”:
The parade is important. It is an act of political protest—marching visibly in the street for our rights, for our existence, for our needs, for our desires. And there are people even today who are like, “Oh, well, that shouldn’t be so political,” but it is, whether we want it to be or not. And I just feel strongly that that is not a one-time thing. That’s not a trend that we only do when it’s cute. It’s not just a seasonal moment. It’s really something for those of us that are part of this community, 24/7, 365. And so again, the invitation is one of great welcome. It is to say, we want you to be who you are, whole and dignified every day.
On this year’s theme of “Always Forward, Never Straight: Preserving History, Coming Home”:
That really has been about inviting our community to continue leaning into a direction of justice, of equity, of organizing, of good trouble, of progressive values, even when it makes people uncomfortable, because we know it’s the right thing.
And I think doing that the way we do it, it felt important to really take into account our history, where we’ve come from, what we’ve been through, because that shapes so much of where we are now, and to uplift this notion of coming home—we’re back downtown, we’re back in a space where the center started.
And I think in a more abstract framing, oftentimes, and we think about coming out and what that means. I think for me, being at home in your own body and coming into the fullness of one’s dignity and wholeness as a human being, as an LGBTQ human being, matters. And then in that spirit of remembering where we come from, being at home in our bodies, in our communities, that’s how we move forward—and that’s never straight. It’s a bit sassy, but that’s the point. It’s meant to be sassy.
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