[Photo Story] State College Celebrates Pride With Car Caravan, After-Party
State College residents and community members busted out all-rainbow everything Saturday to take part in the borough’s first-ever “Pride Ride” car caravan, celebrate Pride Month, and support the LGBTQA+ community.
The caravan followed a planned-out route around State College that started at State College Area High School and wrapped up at Sidney Friedman Parklet on South Fraser Street. Registration fees for the event benefitted the Centre LGBTQA Support Network, which planned the event alongside the borough.
Here’s a brief look at the caravan’s procession around State College Saturday afternoon:
Politicians from near and far made it out to Saturday’s events, too. Ezra Nanes, who’s likely to be elected State College’s next mayor come November, drove with his family, while Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman traveled to the borough with his family as well.
Once the caravan wrapped up, community members gathered on South Fraser Street to continue celebrating at Sidney Friedman Parklet. There, folks mingled, celebrated Pride Month, and listened as supporters gave speeches and advocated for LGBTQA+ support.
The park’s festivities featured an art installation created by recent Penn State College of Arts & Architecture student Leo Wang.
Fetterman, a U.S. Senate candidate, joined the after-party and spoke to the crowd, imploring Pennsylvania to take more steps to protect the LGBTQA+ community.
“[Equal protection under the law] is something that Pennsylvania currently lacks,” Fetterman told StateCollege.com’s Geoff Rushton. “We’re the only state in the northeast that doesn’t offer the kind of basic protections that the rest of us enjoy, and we won’t stop pushing until that is a fact here in Pennsylvania. It’s my absolute pleasure to be here in State College to celebrate Pride this month.”
State representative and fellow U.S. Senate candidate Malcolm Kenyatta addressed the crowd as well and said Pride Month symbolizes much more than rainbow clothing and flags.
“Every time I see these beautiful flags, I see all these faces, I’m reminded that these flags are paid for with the blood, sweat, and tears of activists, particularly Black trans women, who, for decades, stood up in the face of not crowds cheering them on, but crowds trying to shut them down and silence them and not allow them to be who they are,” Kenyatta said. “There are folks who worked to make [Pride Month] possible. And so in Pride, we remember them.”
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