UK Black Pride will go ahead this year – as a virtual 15th birthday homecoming celebration
UK Black Pride 2019. (Quintina Valero/Getty)
UK Black Pride will go ahead this year as a virtual 15th birthday celebration, organisers have revealed.
The event, which is billed as Europe’s biggest celebration for LGBT+ people of African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American and Middle Eastern descent, was postponed indefinitely in March due to concerns about COVID-19.
But UK Black Pride organisers have rolled back the decision, instead opting for a virtual 15th birthday celebration event to be live-streamed on their website.
The virtual event will celebrate UK Black Pride’s 15-year history and will feature performances, live DJ sessions and speakers, as well as virtual rooms hosted by partners in the community.
In a statement, UK Black Pride organisers said people of colour need spaces to call their own and where they can celebrate their identities safely.
UK Black Pride virtual event will help people of colour to ‘breathe, relax and let our hair down’.
“We deserve to be surrounded by people who love us, who understand us and who want to see us win,” the statement said.
“We deserve moments in which we can breathe, relax, let our hair down, where we don’t have to worry about explaining our existence to others.
“We deserve to find joy publicly, loudly and with abandon.”
Too many of us don’t have safe spaces we can go back to, or family who love us without conditions and expectations.
They said the event has become a “home” to many people, from volunteers to the communities it represents.
“The fact of the matter is, too many of us don’t have safe spaces we can go back to, or family who love us without conditions and expectations.
Many emotions about @ukblackpride being 15 years, it’s not been easy. We’ll be hosting a day of celebrations live streamed, including performances, live DJ sessions & speakers; alongside a series of virtual rooms hosted by our partners within the community https://t.co/wBzHRqcBJV pic.twitter.com/SDWw9Omqcl
— Phyll Opoku-Gyimah (Lady Phyll) (@MsLadyPhyll) July 23, 2020
“We all come from a long line of queer people of colour who have fought to create homes that live up to their definition: a place where we are loved, respected and cared for.”
The event’s 15th birthday celebration’s theme is “home”.
“We hope to always be that place you feel you can come to when your feet are tired and your heart is heavy,” organisers said.
“We hope to create spaces for you all that remind you that with us is one of the places where you belong.”
UK Black Pride co-founder and director Lady Phyll said: “It’s not been easy, we have been challenged, ridiculed, disrespected, discriminated but yet still our resilience, passion, determination, commitment, the need for equality/equity and for love has brought us to this place, so many people to thank for helping build UKBP.”
