Chicago Pride Parade

"Video coverage of the 2007 Chicago Gay Pride Parade."
The Chicago Pride Parade 2006, on Halsted Street at Brompton Avenue.
A Human Rights Campaign float moves past spectators.

The Chicago Pride Parade, also (and formerly) called the Chicago Gay Pride Parade or PRIDE Chicago, is the annual pride parade held on the last Sunday of June in Lake View, Chicago, Illinois in the United States. It is funded and organized by the Chicago City Council and Mayor of Chicago. Chicago's Pride Parade is one of the largest, by attendance, in the world.

The first parade was organized on Saturday, June 27, 1970, as a march[1] from Washington Square Park ("Bughouse Square") to the Water Tower, but then many of the participants marched on to the Civic Center (now Richard J. Daley) Plaza.[2]

For many years, the parade was held only in Lake View East, a neighborhood in Chicago. Recent parades have expanded their routes by extending it to the Uptown neighborhood, beginning at the corner of Broadway and Montrose. The parade then goes south on Broadway to Halsted, continues south on Halsted to Belmont, then east on Belmont to Broadway and finally south again on Broadway to Cannon Drive and Lincoln Park.

In June 2017, the Grand Marshall of the parade was Lea DeLaria and over 1,000,000 attended the parade.[3]

There was no parade in 2020 caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It returns in 2021.

References

[change | change source]
  1. ↑ "Chicago Tribune", June 28, 1970, p. A3
  2. ↑ "Outspoken: Chicago's Free Speech Tradition". Newberry Library. Archived from the original on 2005-02-17. Retrieved 2008-09-07.
  3. ↑ 48th annual Chicago Pride Parade held on North Side ABC7 Chicago