‘Bring who you are’ to the fifth annual Macon Pride

Macon Pride is preparing for its fifth and biggest annual pride event this month with 10 days of entertainment, celebration and community conversation.

With events throughout downtown, attendees will have lots to choose from, including a Haus Party with Latrice Royale and LaLa RI from RuPaul’s Drag Race, a pride pageant, a screening of “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!” at the Bibb Theatre and a Lively Libations Social at Piedmont Brewery and Kitchen, complete with a special 2024 Macon Pride beer.

The main focus of this year’s pride event is to foster a safe space for individuals to celebrate, discuss impactful issues facing queer folks and create new experiences for the LGBTQ+ community, Macon Pride co-founder DeMarcus Beckham told The
Melody.

“I’m not saying our festival is going to change the minds of people, but what we are doing is creating a space for people to make that change,” he said. “To see themselves. To understand that you don’t have to go to Atlanta or Savannah to live your out, Pride self.”

Setting Macon Pride apart from pride celebrations in other Georgia cities’ is one of the reasons, along with heat concerns, that Macon’s events take place in cooler September. Another central element of Macon Pride is its family-friendly atmosphere, which Beckham explained is part of their goal to be inclusive for everyone.

“Sometimes it’s people’s first time going to a pride. Our pride is different in a way. It has a community feel where all are welcome,” said Beckham, who moved to Macon 11 years ago and grew up in a small town with no LGBTQ+ representation.

In addition, Macon Pride’s Sunday Family Picnic and Worship at Coleman Hill incorporates religion into the pride festivities and is open to all faiths.

The picnic pays homage to Macon’s blossoming pride scene of the late ‘90s when queer individuals hosted picnics in parks. During this time, the LGBTQ+ community also held a small parade, spanning just a couple blocks and hidden from the general public.

Although Macon was once home to three gay bars and is the birthplace of iconic musicians like Little Richard, who paved the way for many queer Maconites, visibility has not always been easy to come by.

In 2019, Beckham and Scott Mitchell – owner of The Bohemian Den, one of Macon’s first openly LGBTQ+ supportive businesses, and Sweet Eleanor’s – set out to revitalize Macon’s pride movement and establish a celebration for its ever growing queer community.

That year marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, a pivotal time for the gay rights movement, Beckham explained, marred by reports of violence agains trangender individuals. Macon Pride started as just a one-day event, meant to amplify LGBTQ+ visibility and reaffirm its presence in Macon.

“Our first pride was in the middle of June. It was only three hours, it had rained, but when we looked around, we saw community,” Beckham said, noting that folks from all backgrounds participated. “We were acknowledging our community, and from that point on, we said, ‘how can we make this bigger?’”

The following year’s celebration ran entirely virtual due to the pandemic. Since then, the duration of pride events has increased every year from four to seven to nine days, with 2023 Macon Pride garnering nearly 4,000 attendees.

As the county’s pride movement grows, Beckham asserts that Macon has potential that needs to be nurtured.

“Macon is positioning itself, right now, as an inclusive place,” Beckham said. “The people who’ve lived here all their lives, I hope they understand they’re sitting in a great sweet spot. Sometimes it just takes individuals to challenge the narrative of who we are to who we can be.”

Boy George and Squeeze were originally set to open for this year’s pride, but the show was canceled due to a lack of ticket sales. For a full list of Macon Pride events, visit maconpride.org/2023-pride-week-events.