Tuesday marked the beginning of LGBTQ Pride Month, usually celebrated with street festivals, events and parties. The first Pride was a protest outside the Stonewall Inn in New York in 1969 led by transgender women of color.
Thousands participated in Poughkeepsie s first Pride Parade and festival nearly 50 years after the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village on June 9, 2019. LGBTQ+ community members, allies and elected officials marched in from Market Street in vibrant colors down Main Street to Waryas Park, where a festival awaited.
Poughkeepsie GO, known as PKGO, is a city initiative to celebrate its new developments, partnerships and successes. This year s PKGO parade on June 12 was originally planned to be a car parade, as organizers in January didn t know what the state of social distancing in a COVID-19 world would be. Marder said a lot of people were disappointed they couldn t march again.