“But the community support and meetings following that just happened in the fastest and most positive way possible.” “We pulled together a board,” Keller said. The idea for the first Alamance Pride Festival began about five months ago on a sidewalk beside a local cigar bar when Keller and a group of four other people agreed that it was about time an open event showcasing how LGBTQIA acceptance was organized within the county. “I don’t even remember how we all came together,” he said.
When Paul Keller, current president of Alamance Pride, was asked how so many people were brought together to help organize and support the event, he was lost for words. Local business and community members united under the banner of pride, along with more than 50 local vendors and entertainment from drag queens, including Stormie Daie, and the Triad’s Pride men’s Chorus.
The event - which was hosted by Alamance Pride, the area’s newly created nonprofit organization supporting the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Queer, Intersex and Asexual (LGBTQIA) communities in the county - ran from 11 a.m to 5 p.m. What was on their minds, instead, were rainbow flags and making history.Īt Alamance County's first pride festival, residents from all over the county came together to express messages of acceptance and advocacy for LGBTQIA communities and to mark the one-year anniversary of North Carolina achieving marriage equality through the district courts. It may have drizzled over Alamance County on Saturday, but the more than 1,000 people gathered at the Historic Train Depot & Amphitheater paid little attention to the rain.