Happy Pride Month from NAZ!

June is Pride Month, and while it soon comes to a formal end, we want to acknowledge that our support for the LGBTQIA+ community extends beyond this month.

Pride and the gay rights movement began because of the activism of Black and Transgender community members during the Stonewall Uprising against police brutality in 1969 in New York, which has had a lasting impact on the modern gay rights movement.

52 years later, people are once again in the streets, protesting police brutality, forever linking Pride and the Black Lives Matter movements as they both struggle for liberation. As long as oppression, police brutality, community violence, and discrimination exist, Pride will always be about holding up the value and dignity of LGBTQIA lives through powerful activism.

And as we continue the fight for equal rights together with those in the LGTBQIA+ family we know this includes Black Lives. We are inspired by those who came before us who fought for these rights – Bayard Rustin, Angela Davis, James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, just to name a few.

To those in our LGBTQIA+ community, both on the Northside and beyond, we see you and we stand with you. Happy Pride!