Pride
This is one of my favorite photos so far. The first big event I attended as a working photographer and not just a college student with a hobby was the 2018 Charlotte Pride Parade. It was amazing, so far beyond what I was used to coming from Mississippi. We don't have parades like this in Jackson. If you Google "Jackson pride parade" you will learn (like me) that there is a Jackson, Michigan and that they are much more accepting of LGBT pride than my capital city hometown.
My perspective going to this parade was this: I grew up listening to an older generation refer to gay relationships as various degrees of friendships. Two gay men were friends, "friends", or "very good friends." As far as that generation was concerned with LGBT, the L was non-existent and the G existed on the periphery of society. I say "was" in reference to my childhood. Things are very much still this way in those circles. To be clear, my parents were progressive liberals. They laid a unique moral and ethical foundation for me; an awareness of the antiquated conservative mechanisms of the Deep South coupled with a burning desire to make progress. And don't take Mississippi for a lost cause. However deep conservative Mississippians would like to bury the South, the light of social progress touches all. Starkville, MS held the state's first official pride parade last year in lieu of a federal lawsuit. And last year, city officials voted to approve a permit for a 2019 parade, 4-3.
So I've stepped out into the parade. I've been running between floats and following them up and down Tryon for an hour and here is this float, filled with near-naked men of all ethnicities, all wearing sunglasses, dancing to a pounding bass that feels like it's shaking years off of my life. The float stops. It's gotten held up by the rest of the parade. The man at the head of the float, our subject, feels the stop and in a moment of absolute indignation, looks back at the driver and thrusts his flag forward. Here in the American South, with its long and storied history of bigotry and oppression, this parade will stop for no one.