Hundreds upon hundreds of people made their way through downtown Saturday as the city hosted its third annual Springfield Pride Parade.
Taking up half of the roadways from State Street to Main Street, a long stretch of marchers and floats stepped off from Springfield Technical Community College, heading downhill before turning and heading to Steans Square a few blocks away.
Rainbow flags, colorful garb, and signs celebrated the LGBTQIA+ community.
It was a loud and proud celebration that plenty of spectators took in, including the newly-graduated Holyoke Community College students who just had their commencement at the MassMutual Center, right by the parade route.
Official attendance numbers were still being tabulated Monday, but according to the Springfield Pride Parade Organization’s founder and CEO, Taurean Bethea, there was definitely an uptick in onlookers this year.
“We had a lot more floats in the parade. so, we're still waiting on final numbers, but the parade itself was bigger,” he told reporters.
What started as a march and large party in the city’s Court Square in 2022 has ballooned into a giant stretch of local groups, businesses and city departments taking part.
That included social services groups like the Center for Human Development, as well as Springfield’s Department of Health and Human Services and the city’s library department.
A special “You Ball” fundraising gala at the MGM Springfield Casino came the night before, with Saturday’s festivities leading to a block party that went into the evening. The event’s musical headliner was Big Freedia.
“We saw the parade - lots of flags, music, dancing, love, waving - just so much love outpouring from the community, from banks to churches,” said attendee Hannah Worpek of Ludlow, who was in Springfield with her partner, Cass Godin. “It was amazing.”
Worpek said at its heart, Pride is about advocacy but also celebrating love - Godin agrees.
“- and with how much is going on in the world nowadays with how much hate there is, we need more events around our cities,” Godin told WAMC.
Other attendees, like Yui Costa of Westfield, said they were overjoyed to see the sheer amount of representation in the center of the city – thriving in a spot just south of where massive Pride events are usually found in Northampton and Greenfield further up I-91.
“I love it - it really warms my heart, and the amount of people coming here to celebrate, being themselves is amazing,” Costa said.
As Bethea tells it, during that first year, organizers were initially planning for around 500 people to attend. Some 6,500 turned out.
Being from Springfield himself, Bethea says displays like Saturday’s were in short supply when he was growing up.
“I didn't see this - and for a while, you just didn't think it exists - and then I moved to New York, and just seeing that robust lifestyle and the support - it only made sense to try to bring it back home,” he said.
Now partnering with the city and heading an organization that champions safe spaces for local youth, runs summer programming and raises funds for a scholarship, the group’s CEO says the response to the parade and more has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We just went for it, and the response that we received - you can tell that it was needed,” Bethea added. “So, the people spoke, that we needed something like this - and it spoke to me, because I didn't see this when I was a kid. To have this here - it means so much to me, as, you know, just a Springfield native”
Pride events in the Pioneer Valley continue throughout the month. Franklin County Pride is in Greenfield on Saturday June 15, and the Holyoke Pridefest is June 22.
