Happy Pride Month: What to know about the history of the LGBTQ struggle for justice in Grand Rapids

It is Pride Month and we all need to do what we can to support people who identify as part of the LGBTQ community, along with organizations that are continuing the fight for queer and trans lives in Grand Rapids.

Please support the Grand Rapids Pride Center, the Grand Rapids Trans Foundation,  and autonomous groups like Protest for Progress. These groups not only provide ongoing support and services for queer and trans people, but they doing great education work, along with organizing people to fight for their rights.

Another way we can support this ongoing struggle for LGBTQ justice is to know the history of organizing that has happened and what people have sacrificed over the years to make life for those who are part of the LGBTQ community a little bit better.

In 2011, we produced a documentary about this history, which you can watch here.

The Network organized the first Pride Celebration in 1988, which was not supported by the Mayor of Grand Rapids. Mayor Helmholt had granted at least 119 proclamations since the Network’s first request in 1988. Among the groups/events that Helmholt wrote proclamations for were: Michigan Beverage News Week, Family Sexuality Education Month, Polish Heritage Month, National Roofing Week and Bozo Show Day. Here is short interview with Mayor Helmholt.

Someone also videotaped the first Pride Celebration in Grand Rapids, which you can watch here.

In 1990, the Grand Rapids Pride Celebration invited AIDS Quilt founder Cleve Jones to speak about his work to educate the public about HIV/AIDS.

Jones, who was a close friend of the late Harvey Milk, spoke with Bryan Ribbens about his experience of being in Grand Rapids in the video below.

Another example is this powerful video of a Network event in 1992 billed as a discussion about the lessons learned from Stonewall. In this video (below), Holly VanScoy and Dennis Komack facilitate a discussion, which covers a whole range of topics, such as the Lesbian influence in the local movement, how Grand Rapids responded to the AIDS crisis, dealing with the reactionary right in West Michigan and the evolution of Pride events.

At one point in the discussion, one of the participants makes the point about “necessary radical thought.” This comment stands out in many ways, because what the person was saying is that it is absolutely necessary that we not only continue to reflect on where we came from as a community, but that we continue to challenge our understanding of who we are and where we are going. Movements for social change are resilient to the degree that they can embrace the idea of necessary radical thought.

Here is this powerful video from 1992 that should inspire all of us to continue to reflect and challenge what it means to be liberated in a world that either despises us or wants to co-opt us.