Local
Record turnout for Pride
‘Wonderfully diverse’ crowd defies heat, humidity
Capital Pride’s parade June 12 featured 175 contingents — the most ever for the event. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
A record-breaking 175 contingents in last weekend’s Capital Pride parade and about 250,000 people at the street festival the next day showed the world how “wonderfully diverse we are as a community,” according to the event’s lead organizer.
Dyana Mason, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance, the non-profit group that organized Washington’s 35th annual LGBT Pride events, called the festivities a “great success.”
“It was wonderfully diverse and had a true cross section of our community,” she said. “It was just wonderful to see everybody from Results Gym to Rainbow Families D.C. to faith communities to the leather contingent. Everybody was there and just being themselves.”
As in past years, the parade’s lead contingent was the lesbian motorcycle group Dykes on Bikes. And a short distance behind them, a contingent of the city’s elected officials joined the parade.
Among them were Mayor Adrian Fenty and his chief rival in the September Democratic primary, City Council Chairman Vincent Gray.
Others included D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and gay D.C. Council members David Catania (I-At Large) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who also are up for re-election this year.
They were joined by Council members Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), Kwame Brown (D-At Large), Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6).
Also marching in the parade was former D.C. Parks & Recreation director and gay City Council candidate Clark Ray, who is challenging Mendelson in the September primary.
The politicians, including Fenty and Gray, appeared to be well received as they passed large crowds along a parade route that stretched from 24th and P streets, N.W., around Dupont Circle to the gay enclave along 17th Street.
From there, the parade turned east on P Street, where it passed the official reviewing stand in front of the Whole Foods supermarket near 15th and P streets before ending on 14th Street at Thomas Circle.
The politicians — all of whom are strong supporters of LGBT civil rights — were quickly followed by colorful floats carrying performing drag queens, shirtless male swim team members, gym enthusiasts riding exercise machines, and country western dancers performing the two-step.
Capital Pride officials identified certain contingents as winners of Capital Pride’s annual parade awards: Ziegfeld’s/Secrets nightclub took the Cher Award for Best Theme/Energy; Results Gym captured the Tina Turner Award for Best Float; D.C.’s Different Drummers won the Nancy Sinatra Award for Best Marching Contingent; G Worldwide Resorts earned the Dame Edna Award for Best Visiting Contingent; and Fuego gay bar received the Liberace Award for Most Outrageous.
Also receiving loud applause and cheers along the parade route were the contingents and cars carrying this year’s Capital Pride heroes and super heroes, who were selected for their longtime support for LGBT-related causes.
Among them was Deacon Maccubbin, the former owner of Lambda Rising bookstore who is credited with initiating and organizing the city’s first annual LGBT Pride celebration in 1975.
For many activists, the parade’s route along 17th Street between R and Q streets, N.W., had a special significance this year. On June 10, three days before the parade kick-off, Fenty led a ceremony naming the section of 17th Street between R and Q streets Frank Kameny Way after the nationally recognized D.C. gay civil rights leader.
The ceremony included the unveiling of a newly installed street sign bearing the name Frank Kameny Way, which was visible to parade goers. The street-naming came about through an executive order issued by Fenty.
Kameny, who is credited with founding the city’s gay civil rights movement in the late 1950s, spoke at the ceremony, saying that he could never have predicted the advances in LGBT rights since he was fired in 1957 from his job as a civilian astronomer with the Army Map service because of his sexual orientation.
Joining Fenty in the street naming ceremony was Jack Evans, the Ward 2 Council member whose district includes the newly designated Kameny Way, and gay ANC Commissioner Mike Silverstein, who was among the Dupont Circle ANC commissioners that formally requested the street’s designation.
Also speaking at the ceremony was John Berry, the gay director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Berry noted that OPM’s predecessor agency, the U.S. Civil Service Commission, was the agency that fired Kameny more than 50 years ago for being gay.
“Frank is the perfect storm,” Berry said. “The wall of resistance that he encountered when he challenged his dismissal back in 1957 would have been insurmountable to most people. With no more support than his own brilliant mind and his own powerful lungs, he faced down the United States government.”
Berry noted that over the ensuing decades, Kameny played a key role in guiding the LGBT civil rights movement through battles that ended the government’s ban on civilian gay employees, ended the psychiatric and psychological professions’ classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder, and lifted the government’s ban on issuing security clearances to gay federal employees and contract workers.
“Frank, for every one of us who walk this street, and I walk it daily, your name up here is going to remind us of the power of one person, the power of persistence,” Berry said. “You have changed the world for the better.”
But on the day of the parade, Fenty and other parade goers passing along 17th Street were greeted by another type of sign: professionally printed poster-sized placards bearing the message “Fenty is M.I.A.”
Gay Democratic activist Lane Hudson, who is backing Gray in the mayor’s race, said he and others had the signs made and attached them to light poles along the parade route on 17th Street and along the section of P Street where the parade reviewing stand was located.
Hudson said the placards were intended to deliver a message to parade participants that Fenty has been “missing in action” on a number of LGBT-related issues by not speaking out or meeting with members of the community to address those issues. Anti-LGBT hate crimes, LGBT youth matters and the HIV/AIDS fight were among the issues cited by the signs as issues to which Fenty is not devoting enough attention.
Fenty backers dispute those assertions, though, saying the mayor has extensively addressed those issues during his more than three years in office.
The signs Hudson placed on the light poles list a website for obtaining more information on the subject, but it wasn’t operational earlier this week. Hudson said he planned to activate the site soon.
Capital Pride Alliance President Michael Lutz said the June 13 Capital Pride street festival, held along Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between Third and Seventh streets, also appeared to have attracted an unprecedented number of groups, businesses and vendors. Literature released by Capital Pride shows nearly 250 booths lining Pennsylvania Avenue and several side streets.
Among the businesses setting up booths were SunTrust Bank, the Spy Museum, Verizon Wireless, America Online, the New York Times, and the Washington Nationals Baseball Club. Dozens of local and national LGBT organizations also had booths, with many promoting their latest programs and projects.
The intense heat and humidity throughout the day of the street festival was interrupted briefly as rain showers fell for less than five minutes.
Mason credited drag performer Destiny B. Childs with keeping the entertainment going and the crowd pleased from the festival’s main stage during the rain. With the U.S. Capitol as a backdrop looming above the stage, Childs, whose legal name is Richard Legg, staged a show “that was really something to see,” Mason said.
Country western singer Chely Wright, the festival’s headliner performer, closed the program on the main stage to cheering fans. Wright, who came out as lesbian earlier this year in People magazine, recently completed a new album and is promoting an autobiography.
District of Columbia
D.C. Black Pride set for Memorial Day Weekend
Dozens of events to reflect theme of ‘New Black Renaissance’
D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Black Pride celebration is scheduled to take place May 22-25 as it has since its founding 35 years ago on Memorial Day Weekend with several dozen events in locations across the city.
Like recent years, most of the official events are scheduled to take place at the Westin D.C. Downtown Hotel, including the Opening Reception on Friday, May 22, when Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Durand Bernarr was scheduled to be among the performers.
“This high-energy reception brings together community leaders, creatives, tastemakers, and visitors from across the globe for a night rooted in connection, joy, and celebration,” according to a statement on the Black Pride website.
Also, like past years, the second day of official Black Pride events set for Saturday, May 23, will include a dozen workshop sessions on a wide range of issues and topics. The workshop sessions will take place at the Westin Hotel.
On that same day, Black Trans Pride is scheduled to take place at the hotel from 1- 6 p.m., according to the official schedule of events.
“The goal is and always has been to make sure we have events for everybody, regardless of their financial situation, regardless of their agenda,” said Kenya Hutton, president and CEO of the Center For Black Equity, the D.C. LGBTQ group that organizes D.C. Black Pride.
Hutton said this year for the first time there will be a D.C. Black Pride Fun Run. The Black Pride website says the 5k run will take place Saturday, May 23, from 8 a.m.-12 p.m. starting at the Frederick Douglass Bride near the D.C. Navy Yard.
He said another first will be a film screening of the documentary film “Not Your Average Girl,” about the life of trans woman, author, and advocate Hope Giselle, scheduled for May 22 at the nearby Eaton Hotel.
Also, like in past years, this year’s Black Pride will feature a Rainbow Row organization and vendor expo at the Westin from 5-9 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday that includes information tables set up by organizations and vendors.
The annual Pride In The Park event will take place Monday, May 25, from 12-7 p.m. at Fort Dupont Park located at 3600 F St., S.E. And the seventh annual “Brunch & Babes” drag event was scheduled for Sunday, May 24, at Hook Hall nightclub at 3400 Georgia Ave., N.W.
Among the other events taking place at other locations is a Sunday, May 24 “G-Spot Day Party” organized by local gay activist Geno Dunnington to be held at Bravo Bravo nightclub at 1001 Connecticut Ave., N.W. from 3-9 p.m. Dunnington told the Washington Blade the event will include the playing of house music, which he says played a role in local D.C. Black LGBTQ culture and in the first Black Pride celebration in 1991. The Black Pride website includes a write up of how that came about.
“From 1976 until1990, the ClubHouse in Washington, D.C. was a remarkable nightclub founded by Black members of D.C.’s LGBTQ community, widely known for its signature event – the Children’s Hour,” the write-up says. “This event was a true celebration and took place annually during Memorial Day weekend,” it says.
“When the ClubHouse closed in 1990, many feared the Memorial Day tradition would be lost,” the write-up continues. “However, three men – Welmore Cook, Theodore Kirkland, and Ernest Hopkins – envisioned creating an event that would continue the tradition of the Children’s Hour while also bringing awareness to the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in their community.”
The write-up adds, “Their vision and hard work gave life to the first Black Gay and Lesbian Pride event on May 25, 1991, on the grounds of Banneker Field,” which is located near Howard University. “This first event drew 800 people, who were centered around the theme of ‘Let’s All Come Together.’”
It says organizers expanded the scope of the Black Pride events over the next several years as it evolved and prompted Black Pride events in other cities and the formation of the International Federation of Black Prides, which later became the Center for Black Equity.
“D.C. Black Pride was the catalyst for what is now regarded as the Black Pride Movement,” the writeup says. “Since its birth, more than 50 other Black Pride celebrations now take place throughout the world, many using D.C. Black Pride as its model.”
It adds, “Today, more than 500,000 members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community of African descent and their allies come to Washington, D.C. on Memorial Day weekend to celebrate the beauty of a shared community and raise awareness and funding for HIV/AIDS in the name and spirit of Black Pride.”
Hutton said D.C. Black Pride has grown to a point where organizers cannot keep track of all the unofficial events taking place.
“There are a number of events that are not even on our website,” he said. “They’re parties. People are having cookouts. There are all kinds of things that are happening over the weekend, that are official listed events, partner events, and non-partner events.”
As she has in recent past years, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser this year issued an official mayoral proclamation declaring May 22-25, 2026 as “DC BLACK PRIDE WEEKEND.”
A list of the official 2026 D.C. Black Pride and partner events and their locations can be accessed at dcblackpride.org.
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Congratulations to Jamie Leeds, chef extraordinaire, and owner of Hank’s Oyster Bars, as she ventures into some new areas. Leeds is an award-winning Washington, D.C.–area chef, restaurateur, and entrepreneur with more than three decades of experience shaping the region’s dining scene.
Her first new venture is a restaurant opening in Alexandria this week. It will be called Hank’s Pasta Bar, bringing a personalized twist to classic Italian dining with a hiddenrestaurant-inside-a-restaurant in Old Town, Alexandria. The new trattoria is above Hank’s Oyster Bar, and will feature a build-your-own menu, marking a new direction for Leeds in partnership with chef Darren Norris. Norris brings more than three decades of experience to Hank’s Pasta Bar, with a foundation grounded in Italian cooking. The grand opening was scheduled for May 14. The elevated casual eatery blends an inventive chef-driven menu with an easy-going, sit-down dining experience that puts guests in charge. Hank’s Pasta Bar bridges the gap between elevated fast casual, like Norris’s Shibuya, and full-service dining, like Leeds’s Hank’s Oyster Bar. Diners order electronically at the table, but unlike fast casuals, food and beverages are delivered on plate ware, and a server is on site at all times.
The restaurant-inside-a-restaurant, welcomes guests to dine in with a full bar, including Italian wines and craft cocktails, maintaining its focus on traditional Italian fare with contemporary touches, including a build-your-own pasta bowl experience starting at $16. Create your own pasta bowl from seven artisanal pastas (including gluten-free), nine made-in-house sauces, proteins, vegetables, and toppings. Leeds said, “It’s the kind of place you’d find down a side street in a Tuscan hill town, after being tipped off by a friend who says, ‘trust me.’ If you know, you know.”
The restaurant will continue Hank’s community partnerships, including with Real Food for Kids, supporting programs that improve school food and nutrition equity.
In addition to this you should try Jaimie’s other new venture. Back Door Taco at Hank’s in Dupont Circle. You walk down the alley from 17th Street to the back door of Hank’s, and enter a small patio to partake of great tacos and interesting cocktails.
District of Columbia
HIV Vaccine Awareness Day set for May 18
Whitman-Walker joins nationwide recognition of efforts to develop vaccine
Whitman-Walker Health, the D.C.-based community healthcare center that specializes in HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ-related health services, will join health care advocates from across the country to support efforts to develop an HIV vaccine on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day on May 18.
“HIV Awareness Day, observed annually on May 18, was established to recognize and thank the volunteers, scientists, health professionals, and community members working toward a safe and effective prevention HIV vaccine,” Whitman-Walker said in a statement.
“Led by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the day is also an opportunity to educate communities about the critical importance of preventive HIV vaccine research,” the statement says.
It adds, “The reality is that any new vaccine discovery must be built community by community, institution by institution, and then it must reach everyone – especially the communities who have carried the heaviest burden of this epidemic.”
On its own website, the National Institutes of Health says HIV Vaccine Awareness Day also highlights its longstanding efforts, coordinated by its Office of AIDS Research, to support researchers’ efforts to develop an HIV vaccine.
“Researchers are making promising headway in efforts to develop a safe, effective HIV vaccine,” it says in a statement on its website.
A Whitman-Walker spokesperson said Whitman-Walker was not holding a specific event to observe HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, but it will recognize the day as a way of encouragement for its ongoing work to address the AIDS epidemic and support for vaccine research.
“Today, no one has to die from HIV,” said Whitman-Walker’s Health System division’s CEO, Dr. Heather Aaron in the Whitman-Walker statement. “We have the treatments, the technology, and the research to change outcomes, and yet people in our community are still dying from HIV//AIDS,” she said in the statement.
“That is unacceptable, and it is exactly why our work continues,” she added. “Here in D.C. with more focus on Southeast D.C., the Whitman-Walker Health System remains committed to making a difference through cutting-edge research, policy advocacy, and philanthropy, because fair access to life-saving treatment is not a privilege. It is a right.”
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