Pittsburgh Pride parade pauses for 50 seconds to honor Orlando shooting victims
The slayings of dozens of people at a Florida nightclub brought Pittsburgh's largest gay pride celebration to a brief halt Sunday afternoon.
The tens of thousands of revelers who came to celebrate Pittsburgh Pride and watch the Equality March parade bowed their heads for 50 seconds, in honor of the victims of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
“It brought tears to my eyes,” Judy Douglas, 48, said of the homage. “I'm so glad they did that.”
After hearing the news of the early morning shooting at Pulse, a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, organizers of the annual parade and street festival hurried to set up a tribute to the victims who were killed and the many others who were wounded.
The parade stretched down Grant Street and Fifth Avenue and came to a stop at about the halfway point shortly after it began at noon.
“We felt that we needed to take the time and honor those who just wanted to go out to a bar and have fun,” said Christine Bryan, director of marketing and development for the Delta Foundation, which organized the event.
Pittsburgh Pride events began June 1 and concluded Sunday with the Equality March and PrideFest street festival. June is national Pride Month, which honors the fight for LGBT rights across the country.
“Our mission is to make the world a better place,” Candi Castleberry Singleton, founder and CEO of the Dignity & Respect Campaign, told the crowd. “Today we stand for dignity and respect for all people. We are stronger together.”
Last year's parade drew a crowd of about 110,000 people, and organizers said they suspected there were more this year because it was sunny and the temperature was in the mid-70s. The crowd, lining both sides of the street, cheered as the parade wound through Downtown.
The shooting in Orlando wasn't far from the thoughts of many who attended, they said.
“It just reminds us that we still have some work to do to educate people and break down barriers,” Douglas said.
Chris Cole, 30, said it was encouraging to see so many people of different ages attend to celebrate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights together. But the shooting showed him that they need to keep fighting for those rights.
“It's made us more prideful,” he said about the shooting. “We don't want them to be lost or forgotten.”
Pittsburgh Pride is meant to remind people that they can be who they want to be and love whom they want to love, Bryan said.
“It reminds us we aren't there yet,” she said.
People worldwide expressed condolences and solidarity with the LGBT community Sunday after the shooting, which investigators said was an act of domestic terrorism.
Gov. Tom Wolf on Sunday afternoon ordered all flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of the victims.
“Frances and I send our thoughts and prayers to the victims, their families, and the entire Orlando community for the tragic and senseless terror attack and hate crime that occurred early this morning in Florida,” he said.
Elizabeth Behrman is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 412-320-7886 or lbehrman@tribweb.com.
