With Gay Pride Month in full swing, the 9th Annual LGBTQ Pride Flag raising ceremony will return to East Boston’s Piers Park on Friday.
Organizers will join Massport, Eastie elected officials and members of the local LGBTQ community to raise the ceremonial flag at 6 p.m. on Friday at the park.
Organizer and founder of the event Celeste Hewitt said this year’s theme will be ‘Demonstrations of Inclusion’.
“In addition to doing our annual flag raising, which is the signal that we are a welcoming and inclusive neighborhood,” said Hewitt. “But how can we go beyond that? Beyond the displays? How can we take additional steps to make sure that our environment is truly an inclusive environment. Whether we’re standing up against people that are creating an inhospitable environment, or looking at legislation locally and across the nation, like the Don’t Say Gay bills, we want to make sure that in addition to the first step we’re demonstrating on a daily basis.”
Hewitt said Eastie is arguably the most diverse neighborhood in the City of Boston and sticking up for fellow residents has been kind of second nature.
“So many people’s first steps in this country were in East Boston–a place they came to for opportunity, for community, for family,” she said. “So it’s important that we continue to be overt in our demonstration of inclusivity and make sure that we take the steps, whenever we can, to stick up for folks.”
Eastie’s former Mayoral Liaison Jesus Garcia Mota will deliver this year’s keynote address during the event.
“He’s a great guy and was so excited when I called him to ask him to be our speaker,” said Hewitt. “I’m so glad he was available and is part of the event this year.”
Last year the event came back to Piers Park after going virtual during the pandemic but Hewitt said despite the pandemic in 2020 the event has grown year after year.
“The first year about a dozen of us huddled together and now it’s a packed event,” said Hewitt. “We’ve been eyeing ways to make it more of a longer event than just the flag raising and some speeches perhaps with a reception at the Shipyard of ICA Watershed or another gathering point. I’d love to just see this event grow with something immediately after the flag raising ceremony. There are a lot of folks in the community that are super interested in making this a much larger event. This is nine years for us and we’re one of the first neighborhoods to do a neighborhood-specific Gay Pride event and that’s really exciting and important to us so the organizers would love to see it grow. It’s just a matter of exploring what the next logical step is for us.”
With June as the official LGBTQ Pride Month, local residents have been coming together since 2014 to build and strengthen a sense of community for local LGBTQ residents in Eastie.