PRIDE WITH PURPOSE:
REMEMBERING STONE WALL ON THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE STONEWALL RIOTS
The Pride with Purpose Mural that you see before you is a community project created in 2019 to educate and inspire individuals around the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the birth of the modern Gay Rights movement. It was created by 30+ queer, trans, Latinx, Black, non-binary, artist, anti-fascist Cascadians and members of the Department of Bioregion over two weeks.
It features Marsha P. Johson and Sylvia Rivera, Black and Latin American drag queens that in 1970 launched the first molotov cocktails at Stonewall that launched the modern gay rights movement.
This was chosen to remind people that the changes in the world that we want to see don’t passively happen. The fight for our rights and freedoms is a daily struggle, often led by those that society tries to silence the most. Here, centered in Capitol Hill, Seattle’s traditionally queer neighborhood and on unceded Duwamish territory, highlight this intersection of causes, and reminds us that none of us are liberated, until we all are.
For many people in America, their very existence is a revolutionary act.
For those of us who have the privilege to choose where our time, energy and politics go - we have a responsibility to act with purpose and intention, to create the world we want to see and live in. This mural is for every one of these freedom fighters, and for every community that has faced these oppressions. Drag queens, transgender people, drug users, fem boys, butch lesbians, sex workers, homeless youth - those facing repression and oppression at the hands of the police or discrimination by race - and for those still struggling on the front lines today.
During pride month, the yearly anniversary of the Stonewall riots, we give our thanks, and vow to stand alongside each as we defend and expand our liberties for every person living here, regardless of ability, sexual orientation, age, background, religion, where a person is from, or political viewpoint.
