Wave Staff Report
HOLLYWOOD — Last weekend it was West Hollywood’s show.
This weekend, Pride Month festivities shift a few miles east to Hollywood for the 53rd LA Pride Parade.
The parade will begin at 11 a.m. June 11 at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Highland Avenue. The parade will move north on Highland, then east on Hollywood Boulevard and south on Cahuenga Boulevard, ending at Cahuenga and Sunset.
Comedian Margaret Cho and the late actor Leslie Jordan have been named grand marshals of this year’s LA Pride Parade, while the ACLU of Southern California was named the event’s “community grand marshal.”
Cho will serve as the “icon grand marshal,” honoring her years of anti-racism, anti-bullying advocacy and her support of LGBTQ+ rights, according to the Christopher Street West Association, which produces the LA Pride celebration.
“I’m thrilled and incredibly honored to be the icon grand marshal,” Cho said in a statement. “We need this Pride more than ever. I have been attending Pride celebrations since 1978 and this time around the need to celebrate as well as unite is more urgent than it has ever been. Our love is greater than their hate.”
Jordan, who died at age 67 in October when he suffered a heart attack while driving in Hollywood, will serve as the “legacy grand marshal,” a new designation that will “posthumously celebrate those who have made an everlasting impact on the hearts and lives of our community,” according to Christopher Street West. A group of Jordan’s relatives and friends will ride in the parade in a custom vehicle.
“We are overjoyed by Christopher Street West’s heartfelt recognition to name Leslie as LA Pride’s legacy grand marshal,” Jordan’s sister, Jana “Cricket” Jordan, said in a statement. “This honor further solidifies the positive impact he made in the world, but more importantly for the LGBTQ community. His spirit continues to bring love and light.”
The ACLU of Southern California was chosen as the community grand marshal to recognize its 100th anniversary “of fighting for LGBTQ+ civil rights.” Organizers of LA Pride noted that the ACLU helped Christopher Street West sue the city in 1970 so it could obtain a parade permit for the first Pride Parade.
“For a century, we’ve been on the front lines fighting for people to be their true, authentic selves,” Hector Villagra, executive director of the ACLU SoCal, said in a statement. “We’re honored to be the community grand marshal and proud to love, live among, and protect LGBTQ Californians.”
The Pride Parade will be televised on ABC7.
The LA Pride Village will be set up east of the parade route on Hollywood Boulevard between Vine and Gower streets from noon to 8 p.m.
It will feature two entertainment stages, a local vendor market and plenty of food trucks.
The parade and village follow two days of music June 9 and 10 at the at Los Angeles State Historic Park, just north of Chinatown between the Harbor (110) Freeway and the Los Angeles River.
Mariah Carey and Megan Thee Stallion are headlining this year’s LA Pride in the Park, Stallion performing June 9 and Carey on June 10.
Fletcher, Symone, Gigi Goode, Dorian Electra and the Scarlet Opera are among the acts that will appear prior to Megan Thee Stallion. King Princess, Violet Chachki, Sasha Colby and Jenevieve are part opf the June 10 bill.
The Christopher Street West Association has produced the LA Pride Festival since 1970. The first festival was held to mark the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City in response to the New York Police Department’s raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village.
The event is considered the start of the gay liberation movement and the fight for LGBT rights.