Anchorage Pridefest Part 1: The Parade

I joined the group from Congregation Beth Sholom marching in the Pride Parade in Anchorage today.    I'm splitting this into two or three posts, starting with the parade.  But it was a good day, lots and lots of people out, quite a few company sponsors, some protesters, and lots of dogs and food.

So let's start with prepping for the parade around 8th and F Street.

Right behind Congregation Beth Sholom was the National Park Service.

I knew who Sally Ride was, but knew nothing about Pauli Murray until I got home and googled.  Very briefly, she was born in 1903, lost both parents very early, but got herself to Hunter College, but dropped out after she couldn't get work during the crash in 1929.  University of North Carolina wouldn't admit her in 1938 because she was black, but her case was widely known and she met Eleanor Roosevelt.   She did graduate from Howard, and though she got a prestigious scholarship into Harvard Law School, was rejected ultimately because she was a woman.  Instead she went to Boalt School of Law at the University of California.  It gets better and better.  You can read all about Pauli Murray here.

From Out History:

"Albert Cashier was born Jennie Irene Hodgers on Christmas day, 1843 in Clogherhead, Ireland. . .
Cashier then found his way to Illinois as a stowaway[3][4], though the timing of this is also unclear. He worked a few different jobs including as a laborer, farmhand, and shepherd[5], all the while passing as male. In August of 1862 he enlisted in the 95th Illinois Infantry, Union army of the American Civil War as “Albert D. J. Cashier” in Belvidere, IL[6][7]. He remained in the army for three years before he returned to civilian life[8]."

Finally, Gilbert Baker.  He's the man who created the rainbow flag.  I didn't know about him either.  He died March 31 this year at age 65.  Let him tell you about the flag's creation himself in this video I found at Gilbert's website which has more videos:



One of the great things about blogging is that I learn all this stuff I didn't know and probably wouldn't have known if I weren't going to write about what I saw and did today.


Here's a shot of people on the float of the Asian Community as we marched by and they were in a cross street waiting to join the parade.

I'm not much of a parade person, but it was fun seeing the people lining the streets from within parade itself.

I'm guessing that this is Daphne, since the Anchorage Pridefest website says that Daphne will read the group bios as they get to this point.  And that's what she's doing here.









I have lots more pictures.  I'm trying to figure out how to organize them.  There are a number of dog pictures, there's the strange protest group that got masked by white angels and drums, there are the businesses and other organizations that had booths, and just a mix of other people I met along the way.  More soon.

Anchorage Pridefest 2 is now up.
So is Pridefest 3 - People I Met