The African American lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community of Washington, D.C. has always been full of life, and its history rich.
From 1975 until 1990, the Club House was a premiere community gathering space most notable for its annual Memorial Day weekend celebration, called the Children’s Hour. It was, of course, more than an hour—in fact, it usually went all night long. The Children’s Hour quickly became an institution that could not be missed word of mouth about what was happening in D.C. during Memorial Day weekend spread up and down the East Coast and throughout the country. What began as a local highlight soon began pulling in folks from all over?
When the Club House closed its doors in 1990, many feared that the Memorial Day tradition would be lost as well. Three men—Welmore Cook, Theodore Kirkland and Ernest Hopkins—found themselves concerned with not just the lack of a place for the community to gather during the holiday weekend, but also with the growing epidemic of HIV/AIDS and its impact on their community. They envisioned creating an event that would continue the tradition of the Children’s Hour as well as raise much-needed funds for the HIV/AIDS organizations that served the African American community in Washington and the surrounding area.
From that idea came the first Black Gay and Lesbian Pride, which was essentially a collaboration among those three organizers, the DC Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gay Men and the Inner-City AIDS Network. On May 25, 1991, the first DC Black Pride festival was produced on the grounds of Banneker Field. Hundreds of people from the community came together for a relevant cause.
Read the full article below on DC'S First Black Pride
How Maryland’s first Black Pride came to be.
The first week in October was a milestone in the history of Black LGBT Baltimore. Baltimore Black Pride will enter its twentieth year of celebrating Black LGBT life and culture. The event has grown from being just a party to a series of workshops, shows, galas and spiritual services highlighting various aspects of the lives and times of African American same-gender loving people.
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