For Julissa Rosario, Chicago’s Pride Parade is a family affair.
Rosario, 23, has been helping with the parade since 2017. Her grandmother, Milta Fuentes, has been part of organizing the parade for more than 20 years.
“It’s kind of something in my family, that we all get together, participate in, and bring our family and friends,” she said.
The Irving Park resident was one of the parade marshals. She arrived early to check in other parade marshals.
“It’s just another way to support my community and help out,“ Rosario said.
Thousands of spectators marched Sunday through Lakeview for the 53rd annual Pride Parade.
This year’s theme was “Pride is Power,” highlighting its advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community in Chicago and the region, according to a news release from the parade’s organizers.
“Now is the time to embrace the power of Pride,” said parade co-coordinator Ron Thomas in a March press release. “Our unified voice empowers us to keep our movement moving forward.”
The first Pride Parade in Chicago was held in 1970, on the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York. Today, Chicago’s annual parade is the largest in the Midwest,. This year’s grand marshals were Fortune Feimster and Jax Smith; Art Johnston and José Pepe Peña; and Myles and Precious Brady-Davis.
Food vendors, face painters and sellers of Pride flags and T-shirts lined Broadway to sell their wares. By 10 a.m., the crowds began to pick up, lining the street in anticipation of the parade, which stepped off at 11 a.m.
Attendees braved elbow-to-elbow crowds on the sidewalks along the parade. They cheered for hours, waving rainbow flags and swaying their hips to the music. People who lived in buildings and houses along the route cheered from open windows.
In March, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration announced that this year’s parade would be downsized to maintain safety and ensure police presence. The city said the parade would be limited to 125 groups, but the decision was met with backlash. Following pushback from the advisory council and other groups, Johnson increased the number of groups to 150, a nearly 25% decrease from last year.
In the early hours, community organizations and local businesses set up their floats: from McDonald’s and Oscar Meyer to Cook County Health, the Chicago Fire Department and Chicago Public Schools. Volunteers and security staff helped to prepare for the crowds.
The Lakeside Pride band stretched and warmed up with some songs from their repertoire, the sounds of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” reverberating around the parade’s starting point near Sheridan and Broadway.
Also present at the parade were activist groups like Equity Illinois and Planned Parenthood.
At least one parade participant held a rainbow Israeli flag, expressing support in light of the ongoing war in Gaza. Others wore shirts reading “LGBTQ+ pride is a Jewish value.” Down the street on Belmont Avenue, protestors from Behind Enemy Lines passed out a flyer reading “Take the Palestine Vote Pledge,” urging people not to vote for politicians who have voiced support for Israel in the ongoing war.
At around 12 p.m., around 15 pro-Palestine protesters with banners blocked the parade near Broadway and Wellington.
Patrick Stevenson, who has been attending the Pride Parade in Chicago since 2002, stood with a group of friends and got ready to board a float for the Boys and Girls Club. The 41-year-old from the northern suburbs wore heart-shaped sunglasses, a wide-brimmed sun hat and rainbow overalls.
This is his third time on a float, he said, and he planned to throw heart-shaped lollipops into the crowd. Stevenson said he liked being in the parade better than watching it.
“You feel like a celebrity, almost,” he said.
Their float this year would emphasize the importance of getting out to vote, he said. He believes exercising the right to vote is especially critical this year, and said he was proud to help parade-goers receive that message.
Nearby, Kenya Nott, 33, stood with Second City Sisters. Their umbrella organization, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, is an international group of queer and trans “nuns” who fundraise for other LGBTQ nonprofits and promote safer sex and sex positivity.
Nott said it was their Pride Parade debut. The group started a new Chicago house this February.
“It’s like our convent in a way, but we don’t do the whole vow of chastity, we do the fun stuff,” Nott said.
Nott said she felt a serious calling to work with the organization while living in Orlando during a 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub. She was out that night and knew someone who was killed. She said she made it her mission from that point on to spread love and joy.
She danced to the music drifting from the floats in a mini sparkle dress, a rainbow scarf tied around her head. Her face was painted white and she wore fake eyelashes. She said it was disappointing that the parade was shorter this year than in the past.
“I think we should be bigger. We should be gayer,” she said.
This year’s route began a few blocks south of its usual starting point, at Sheridan Road and Broadway in Lakeview, and proceeded south on Halsted Street, east on Belmont Avenue, south on Broadway and east on Diversey Parkway to Sheridan Road.
Road closures began as early as 7:30 a.m. for staging areas and as early as 8:30 a.m. for the parade route, including Irving Park and Wellington at Broadway and Addison, Grace, and Roscoe at Halsted, according to the city. The city plans to reopen the streets by 4 p.m.
During the parade, streets around the route were crowded with people wearing crop tops, colorful beads, stilettos and heart-shaped sunglasses.
Ki Brown, 25 and Ky Ferba, 23 — who wore matching red and blue outfits — said they had driven 40 minutes that morning to get to Chicago from Ford Heights. They stood on North Broadway and waited to watch the floats. They said they became friends in high school because they were both masculine-presenting and openly gay.
“At the time, there (weren’t) a lot of other people like that in school,” Brown said.
Ferba was a freshman and Brown was a junior when they found out that gay marriage was legal. Now Brown is married and Ferba is dating Brown’s sister.
They said that progress for more LGBTQ rights has been slow but forward-moving in Illinois. But they lamented progress in other, more conservative states.
“We just want to be treated the same. We just want to participate and love,” Ferba said.