Jere Chang, an Atlanta teacher, TikTok creator and one of this year’s Pride Parade grand marshals, says she will never forget attending her first Pride event.
“It was the first time I felt as if I could genuinely and authentically be myself,” she says. To be serving as grand marshal years later, “at a time when LGBTQ+ visibility is being challenged, is incredibly emotional for me. It feels like coming full circle. It’s proof to every scared kid watching from the sidelines that there is a future where you are not just accepted, but celebrated. It’s a reminder that joy itself can be an act of resistance.”
That spirit of joy as resistance has always been at the heart of Atlanta Pride. The event started as a small, defiant gathering of activists in 1970, partly as a response to a police raid of a screening of Andy Warhol’s “Lonesome Cowboys” at an Ansley Mall cinema. Five and a half decades later, Atlanta Pride, unfolding Friday through Sunday, bills itself as the largest annual LGBTQ+ festival in the South and the largest parade in Atlanta.
Jere Chang, an Atlanta teacher, TikTok creator and one of this year’s Pride Parade grand marshals, says she will never forget attending her first Pride event.
“It was the first time I felt as if I could genuinely and authentically be myself,” she says. To be serving as grand marshal years later, “at a time when LGBTQ+ visibility is being challenged, is incredibly emotional for me. It feels like coming full circle. It’s proof to every scared kid watching from the sidelines that there is a future where you are not just accepted, but celebrated. It’s a reminder that joy itself can be an act of resistance.”
That spirit of joy as resistance has always been at the heart of Atlanta Pride. The event started as a small, defiant gathering of activists in 1970, partly as a response to a police raid of a screening of Andy Warhol’s “Lonesome Cowboys” at an Ansley Mall cinema. Five and a half decades later, Atlanta Pride, unfolding Friday through Sunday, bills itself as the largest annual LGBTQ+ festival in the South and the largest parade in Atlanta.
“Atlanta Pride has always been grassroots, rooted in resistance,” says Steven Igarashi, the nonprofit’s director of communications and community engagement.
