Motor City Pride

An annual Pride street festival held in Hart Plaza in Detroit, Michigan the second Saturday and Sunday of every June to celebrate the LGBT community. Previously held in Ferndale, Michigan, the festival moved to Detroit in 2011. It is the largest LGBT event held in Michigan. The event showcases both local and national performers including Nickki Stevens, The Fundamentals, and Eric Lehr.

Origins
Detroit's first LGBT pride event was a march and rally, called "Christopher Street Detroit '72", was held in Downtown Detroit on Saturday, June 24, 1972. A march and rally were then held annually until 1977, when the event moved to Palmer Park for a rally and festival until the early 1980's. A festival was held at Wayne State University in 1984, and moved to St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in 1985.

Also in 1985, a relatively new organization, the Michigan Organization for Human Rights (MOHR) hired an Executive Director from Ohio, Craig Covey, in part because of the large and successful Gay and Lesbian civil rights marches he organized in Columbus. In 1986, Craig Covey and MOHR organized Michigan’s first Gay and Lesbian march in Detroit. From 1986-1988, the civil rights march took place down Woodward Avenue followed by a rally at Kennedy Square. A party took place at the McGregor Center on the campus of Wayne State University following the rally, organized by a small number of dedicated Gay and Lesbian groups and volunteers.

In 1989, the Gay and Lesbian civil rights march was moved to the more central location of Lansing to attract statewide participation and political awareness as well as to celebrate the 20th anniversary of New York City’s Stonewall Riots. Metropolitan Detroit was left without a LGBT march, rally and party, so during this same year, the first official Gay and Lesbian Pride Festival was founded and chaired by Frank Colasonti, Jr. and sponsored by the Detroit Area Gay/Lesbian Council (DAGLC). It began a tradition of being held on the first Sunday of June. That year the Pride Festival took place on the Dearborn Campus of the University of Michigan in the gymnasium.

PrideFest
In 1990, the event’s name was officially changed to PrideFest, and was relocated to the Royal Oak campus of Oakland Community College. In 1992, the new chairman Michael C. Lary broke away from DAGLC and created the independent organization South East Michigan Pride to continue the mission of bringing the GLBT community together. His leadership continued until 2001. During this time period the official name of PrideFest became PrideFest Celebration.

Triangle Foundation
In 2002, the PrideFest Celebration officially transferred to the then Triangle Foundation (now Equality Michigan) as part of Triangle’s community outreach activities. In 2003, it was officially renamed Motor City Pride and moved to downtown Ferndale. From 2002 to 2008 it was chaired by Fred Huebener and Jackie Anding, and coordinated by Kevin McAlpine, Development Director at the Triangle Foundation.

Equality Michigan
Since 2009, Motor City Pride has been headed up by a core group of volunteers that form the Motor City Pride Planning Committee. In 2010, The Triangle Foundation merged with Michigan Equality to become Equality Michigan and Motor City Pride became a project of the new Equality Michigan. In 2011, Motor City Pride relocated to Hart Plaza in Detroit and expanded the festival to two days with the parade returning to the official lineup of events.

Notable Performers

 * The Fundamentals
 * Eric Lehr
 * Barbara Payton
 * Nickki Stevens