Spokane Pride unveils ‘Pride History and Remembrance Project’
News Story by Emma Maple | FāVS News
The 2024 Pride celebration has a new event in the lineup — a Pride History and Remembrance Project.
This multi-day exhibit, put on by Spokane Pride, will feature 12+ exhibits from nonprofit community organizations. These exhibits will showcase both national and local LGBTQ+ history.
According to Spokane Pride, one of the goals of this project is to “help preserve the rich stories and enduring legacy of our local LGBTQ+ community.”
Matthew Danielson, executive director of Spokane Pride, said they hope the exhibit will “capture these stories before people pass on and make sure we have a history that is told by this part of the community, instead of being told for us.”
Contextualizing Pride’s history
Another goal, according to Danielson, is to“add some substance to go along with the party” that is Pride.
Because the world has changed so quickly, especially in the last 10 to 20 years, Danielson wants to “contextualize for the young ones what life was like before marriage equality in 2015, and what the AIDS crisis was like.”
One featured exhibit will be provided by the Spokane AIDS Network. Danielson said this exhibit will include at least part of the AIDS quilt, information on the AIDS crisis and stories about how the Spokane community worked through that crisis.
The Project will also feature an exhibit from the Carl Maxey Center on Sandy Williams and the work she did to support both the Black community and the LGBTQ+ community. “She was a huge part of the community,” Danielson said.
Danielson said Spokane Pride wants to provide a place where everybody can “show themselves off and contextualize their history for the community at the same time.”
Danielson characterized this Project as “an experiment” but said that if the event goes well, it will be brought back next year. Spokane Pride is also hoping to store some of the exhibits and bring them out throughout the year “as appropriate.”
If you’d like to check out this Project, visit the Spokane Pavilion building from 11-4 p.m. any day from June 4-6. Alternatively, the Pavilion building will be open for extended hours June 7-8 due to Pride.
