Hotels around Spartanburg
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About Spartanburg
For a long time Spartanburg was where Pride happened in South Carolina's Upstate. The celebration began as an initiative of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg and was later run by Upstate Pride SC, a nonprofit founded in the city. The march and festival took place in the fall, in the final years in Barnet Park downtown.
The board of Upstate Pride SC then decided to drop the Spartanburg festival and merge it with the celebration in Greenville. The group pointed to falling attendance, financial losses, a shortage of volunteers, and sponsors and vendors who no longer found a fall date worthwhile. The combined event is called Colors of Pride and is held on the last weekend of June in downtown Greenville, with further Pride events during the month. The organization also runs a pageant that crowns Miss, Mr. and Mx. Upstate Pride.
The move left many people in Spartanburg disappointed, and a response came from the city itself. The Spartanburg Pride Coalition is a partnership of local groups that support LGBTQ+ people: Fernwood Baptist Church, the Unitarian Universalist congregation, Proud Mary Theatre Company, PFLAG Spartanburg, the health organization Piedmont Care, the project Speaking Down Barriers and LGBTQ+ Theologies. The coalition wants to bring a Pride event back to Spartanburg, ideally in the fall, and announces date and venue itself.
If you plan to visit in autumn, check with the coalition and its member congregations beforehand to see whether something is scheduled. The June festival in neighboring Greenville is the dependable option for the region.
From the magazine
Brenda Howard and the Pride Week: Who Turned a Memorial March into a Tradition
After Stonewall, a march marked the anniversary in 1970, and later a whole week. Brenda Howard is named as one of the people behind it. What is documented and where the title Mother of Pride stays disputed.
Compton's Cafeteria 1966: The Uprising That Began Three Years Before Stonewall
In August 1966, trans women and drag queens in a San Francisco cafeteria fought back against police harassment. What is documented, what is not, and why the story came back so late.
Barcelona 1977: Spain's First Pride March on La Rambla
On 26 June 1977, several thousand people marched without permission up La Rambla in Barcelona and demanded the end of a law that criminalised homosexuality. What happened and what came of it.