Among the many things you can’t predict with parades is just how hot it might be the first week of June in Dallas.
“It is beautiful and I am thankful,” Vinny DeLuna with Dallas Pride says.
The Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade at Fair Park stepped off Sunday afternoon parade free of rain and excessive heat. Still, it was warm enough to find most watching the parade winding through Fair Park seeking shade and donning hats and umbrellas.
DeLuna says the parade marks a long path traveled since Pride started in Dallas in 1983.
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“We started with a tiny little parade, down on Cedar Springs and we’re celebrating our community,” DeLuna said. “And now 40 years later we’re here at Fair Park.”
Mixed in with every color imaginable adorning floats and flags on Sunday, was a pocket of orange -representing gun violence awareness day.
Blair Taylor is the volunteer community outreach lead for the Dallas County chapter of Mom’s Demand Action, a national organization focused on gun safety legislation.
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“We have to show up, we need to be loud,” Taylor said.
The group stood with Uvalde families in Austin during the failed effort at the state legislature to raise the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21 in Texas. It was one of many setbacks for advocates for gun safety, that Taylor says blends with LGBTQ+ rights due to the prevalence of firearms used in bias-motivated killings.
Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation into law on Friday that bans gender-affirming care for minors, joining at least 18 other states with similar laws.
“A lot of the ‘love is love’ stuff for Pride feels a little bit of a miss this year because love needs to be seeking justice, it needs to be taking action,” Taylor said.
Action on this day is rooted in advocacy, visibility and pride.
“We need to be unapologetically affirming and remind the LGBTQ community, you belong here,” Taylor said.
