Columbus Community Pride 2024 – Love & Liberate By Any Means Necessary celebrates the enduring legacy of resistance and survival in the face of unrelenting state violence. The theme reminds us that Black and Brown queer, trans, and intersex folks from all walks of life have always preserved by grounding ourselves in intentional community and building our own systems of care, safety, and healing outside of the influence of the state. We are rooted in these values and this is what allows Community Pride to continue to flourish.
This year’s theme honors how our queer, trans, and intersex elders from communities of color have led countless movements toward liberation throughout history. We believe that working for the most marginalized among us will serve to benefit everyone, and our collective liberations as oppressed peoples are intertwined. We thus work for the liberation of all oppressed people, including but not limited to those in oppressed positions based on their gender, sexuality, race, socioeconomic status, employment, housing, citizenship, disability, religion, etc. We remain in solidarity with local and global struggles against oppressive forces that disrupt our livelihoods and ability to live freely.
“No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us” – Marsha P. Johnson.
Building upon our previous themes, “Back to Our Roots” (2018), “Decades of Resistance” (2019), “FTP!” (2020/2021), “The Future is Queer” (2022), and “Here to Stay” (2023), we are happy to bring this grassroots festival celebration into its seventh year in central Ohio. As we navigate the state’s repression of global protests against the genocide in Palestine, an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, white supremacists disrupting queer spaces, fascist legislation at the Ohio Statehouse, police targeting our people, and more, we maintain our commitment to resisting state violence in all its forms and building abolitionist futures.
We retain our commitment to Black trans elder’s Miss Major Griffin-Gracy words: “We are in this everyday” by striving to make the world a better place for future generations of queer, trans, and intersex folks as well as marginalized and oppressed people everywhere. We know that to do this, we must also continue to cultivate our connection to those ancestors who previously did the same for us, and stand in solidarity with the current local and global movements that disrupt the violence of colonialism and capitalism. We understand that “Our desire to be free has got to manifest itself in everything we are and do” – Assata Shakur. Love & Liberate By Any Means Necessary declares that queer, trans, and intersex folks refuse to be eliminated and will continue to fight for our right to not only survive, but thrive, for many generations to come.
Columbus Community Pride 2024 – Love & Liberate By Any Means Necessary will hold events in June, then we’ll take a break and return for events in August and September, through the festival on October 5 at Mayme Moore Park from 12-7PM. We hope to see you there!
Columbus Community Pride 