Reclaim Pride Unveils Queer Liberation March Route
Alternative march slated to begin at Bryant Park
BY MATT TRACY
The Reclaim Pride Coalition’s
third annual
Queer Liberation March
on June 27 will kick off
at Bryant Park and conclude with
a rally at Washington Square Park,
organizers announced on May 10.
The annual march — which does
not allow police, politicians, or corporate
fl oats — will begin at 3 p.m.,
though marchers are encouraged
to gather at 2:30 p.m. at Sixth Avenue
and West 41st Street.
Marchers will step off there and
head west on West 41st Street to
Seventh Avenue before marching
south to Sheridan Square and the
Stonewall Inn, according to organizers.
Marchers will then head
east on West Fourth Street to Washington
Square Park. The rally will
feature speakers and performers.
The march and rally will be livestreamed.
Organizers say the broadcast
will include pre-recorded clips
stemming from Reclaim Pride’s panel
discussions with the Bureau of General
Services – Queer Division.
It is the third straight year of
a march that formed in response
to the corporate and police presence
at Heritage of Pride’s (HOP)
annual march. Because of the
pandemic, HOP did not have
an in-person march last year,
but tens of thousands of people
On the scene at the Reclaim Pride Coalition’s fi rst annual Queer Liberation March in 2019.
participated in Reclaim Pride’s
Queer Liberation March for Black
Lives and Against Police Brutality.
This year, HOP’s march will
have “to-be-determined in-person
elements.”
Last year’s Queer Liberation
March started earlier in the afternoon
at Foley Square and proceeded
to Washington Square Park, where
marchers were pepper sprayed by
police offi cers in a chaotic scene.
“I see the Queer Liberation
March as the antidote to the proliferation
of those over-baked parades,”
Jay W. Walker, a Reclaim
Pride Coalition volunteer said in
a written statement. “People are
hurting right now, and have been
for decades. Enough of the corporate
use of our fl ags and identities
to pinkwash their crimes.”
Walker added, “Enough of the
NYPD violently attacking protests.
And enough of the politicians
benefi ting off our communities’
pain to boost their vote
count. We need them to do their
damn jobs.”
The 2019 march, which took
DONNA ACETO
PRIDE
place on the 50th anniversary of
the Stonewall Uprising, resembled
the route taken during the 1970
march. The 2019 march concluded
with a rally at Central Park.
Earlier this year Reclaim Pride
stressed that hand sanitizer and
masks will be available at the
march and along the route. Spare
wheelchairs will be available for
those who need them. Furthermore,
American Sign Language
interpreters will be on hand and
there will be medics stationed at
the march.
➤ HERITAGE OF PRIDE, from p.4
Reclaim Pride Coalition told Gay
City News on May 15. “We’ll see
what happens, but as far as I know,
the Heritage of Pride Parade is still
going to be awash in corporatism
and we’ll have to see whether they
remember that Pride is about the
rights of the LGBTQIA communities
that march in it.”
Walker said the coalition wonders
whether HOP will eliminate
the NYPD’s control over the route
of their parade as well as the barricades
along the route. He further
said he is not sure how HOP would
reduce the police presence.
“I wonder how they think they’re
going to be able to effectively do
that,” he said.
STARR, which outlined demands
for reform in a letter to HOP
and city offi cials earlier this year,
noted that the announcement
came at a time of criticism surrounding
HOP.
“As pleased as STARR and I’m sure
Marsha’s family is to see the press
coverage regarding HOP’s public
comments and actions with regard
to the NYPD being kept out of Pride,
we fi nd the timing and sentiment
ironic,” said Mariah Lopez, STARR’s
executive director, who predicts that
Black and trans folks will increasingly
lead Pride festivities.
The criticism surrounding police
at Pride intensifi ed even more last
year in the wake of the nationwide
protests against police brutality
and racism. In June of last year,
LGBTQ folks were beaten in Manhattan
after holding a march at
Stonewall to protest deadly violence
targeting transgender individuals.
Most recently, the NYPD roughed
up protesters at the weekly Stonewall
protests condemning police
brutality and violence against trans
individuals. At Columbus Circle on
April 22, video footage showed offi -
cers shoving protesters with batons
and pushing them to the ground.
Furthermore, the ban on correction
offi cers comes two years
after Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette
Polanco, an Afro-Latinx trans
woman, was neglected by guards
at Rikers and died in 2019 after
suffering a medical emergency.
That same year, Kawaski Trawick,
an out queer man, was shot and
killed by police offi cers in his own
home in the Bronx.
Last year the Queer Liberation
March served as the city’s
only in-person Pride march on
the fi nal Sunday in June and attracted
tens of thousands of attendees
throughout the fi rst two
marches.
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