As local Pride Celebrations became more commercial over the years, a wide variety of notable musical acts have performed at them. Here is a sample:
C+C Music Factory, 1997 and 2000
En Vogue, 2006, 2010
Jennifer Holliday, 2012
Chaka Khan, 2007
Lisa Lisa, 1999
Pansy Division, 2004
CeCe Peniston, 1999
RuPaul
Jody Watley, 2002
Chely Wright, 2011
In the last 40 years, Kansas City’s Pride Celebrations have been held throughout the city. Here’s a list of most of those venues:
1975: Gay Community House, 3825 Virginia
1978, 1979, 1994, 2004-2009: Penn Valley Park/Liberty Memorial
1988-92: Southmoreland Park
1993: Roanoke Park
1995-2003: Barney Allis Plaza
2010, 2015: Berkley Riverfront Park
2011-2012: Power and Light District
2013: Westport
2014: West Bottoms
Of course, it wouldn’t be a festival without a t-shirt, so here are the logos from a random assortment of Pride Celebrations:
1990, front
1990, back
1991
1997
1998
2000, featuring the fabulous Flo, beautiful Belle Starr, and legendary Melinda Ryder
Undated
Undated
By the 2000-teens, Pride Celebrations in Kansas City were on the decline. Perceived focus towards a target market group rather than the entire community, uneven production values, and ongoing concern around fiscal responsibilities have all contributed to a sense of frustration and apathy about Pride. Indeed, there have been attempts at offering what some might consider competing Pride events. For these reasons, this 40th anniversary year brought a new emphasis on improvements to the Celebration, resulting in the largest crowds of the decade so far.
Pride 2015 volleyball game
Pride 2015 Human Rights Campaign Booth
HASL Booth
Missouri Air National Guard Booth (!)
Heartland Men’s Chorus
Local drag legends Flo and Melinda Ryder
Linda Clifford, one of the “First Ladies of Disco”
The Kit Bond Bridge showing its Pride
The trend towards making a profit from the Pride Celebration that started in the 1990s continued into the new century. Various entities were formed to manage production of the event, some with greater success than others. Pride Celebrations in Kansas City during this time were plagued with real or perceived financial malfeasance, which soured the event for many.
The scale of the events, however, continued to benefit from the influx of funds and grew as the decade progressed. The location was shifted from Barney Allis Plaza to Penn Valley Park, which could accommodate more attendees, more vendors, and a larger stage for entertainment. Several years saw a Street Festival in what is now the Crossroads District prior to the weekend’s main events in the park. Exhibitor booths expanded to include a much greater percentage of commercial vendors, further contributing to the move towards a greater corporate feel to the Celebration. Marketing seemed to be a goal, not community-building.
Support from politicians for the LGBT community and its concerns was another facet of the Pride Celebrations that expanded during this time as well. Proclamations for Pride were regularly issued by city, county, and state leaders. But nowhere was this support made more memorable than the cover of the June, 2006 issue of Camp, Kansas City’s primary LGBT news periodical. Mayor Kay Barnes, a longtime supporter of the LGBT community, appeared in a blond wig and 1950s housewife garb holding a iced rainbow cake:
Mayor Kay Barnes in 50s drag
It was a masterful and unforgettable depiction of growing political support for Kansas City’s LGBT communities.
The mid- to late-1990s saw a shift in the evolution of Kansas City’s Pride Celebrations. Organizers noted the size of crowds in attendance, and realized that the Celebrations could turn a profit if presented appropriately. The first evidence of this transformation in GLAMA collections is in 1996. While the Celebration was presented for the second year by Project Pride, a new initiative of GLSN, it appears to have been the first time a fee was levied on attendees. The one-day festival was held at Barney Allis Plaza in downtown Kansas City, preceded by a parade.
1996 Parade flyer
1996 Parade Route
By 1998, a for-profit corporation was responsible for the Pride Celebration, again held in Barney Allis Plaza with an accompanying parade and admission fee. In 10 years, Kansas City’s Pride Celebration has gone from a grassroots, community-driven effort to a profit-driven event.
1998 Pride Guide
1999 Pride Guide
Participants in Kansas City’s 1993 Pride Celebration had reason to revel. In April of that year, the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation was held, drawing 1,000,000 marchers, including a Kansas City contingent. Locally, the Kansas City Council passed the ordinance prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians in housing and employment in June – fittingly, Pride Month. Spirits were high that summer.
The Celebration itself was moved to Roanoke Park in order to accommodate growing crowds. Indeed, owing to the non-discrimination ordinance passage, attendance at the 1993 Pride Celebration broke all records.
1993 Pride Program
That year’s parade was rather extensive, assembling at Mill Creek Park and marching north along Nichols Parkway/Broadway through Westport to Valentine Road and on to Roanoke Park. Note the instructions for the parade cautioned larger floats to integrate after the parade passed beneath the former streetcar overpass at 43rd. Street.
1993 Parade route
This appears to have been the last Pride Celebration organized by Gay and Lesbian Awareness. Evidence shows that subsequent Celebrations continued to be organized by GLSN, the Gay and Lesbian Services Network, the umbrella organization of GALA and several other initiatives, but, after five years of increasingly successful Pride Celebrations, GALA was no more.
The parade associated with the 1992 Pride Celebration was billed as the only Pride Parade in the country to span two states. Granted, it started on a state line and was only about a mile-and-a-half, but still. Gathering in Westwood, Kansas, near 48th and State Line, the parade marched north to 47th and then east through the Country Club Plaza, ending at Southmoreland Park.
1992 Pride Parade route
1992 Pride logo
GALA entry in the Parade
Pride Week events
1992 Pride Guide
Protests greeted parade marchers, primarily from members and supporters of FIRED-UP, the local anti-gay organization founded by local right-wing Christians. In addition, a lawsuit was filed against the mayor of Westwood for proclaiming Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, and his response was to subsequently issue a tongue-in-cheek proclamation announcing “Heterosexual and Moral Living Month”. This anti-gay sentiment was in part responsible for record crowds at both the Parade and the Picnic that year.
The 1991 Pride Celebration was almost no celebration at all. The event was engulfed with political controversy and community rancor.
It the year between the 1990 and 1991 Celebrations, there was much civic and political energy and complementary media attention around attempts to pass a city ordinance that would ban discrimination in housing and employment against gays, lesbians, and those afflicted with HIV/AIDS. Heated City Council and committee debates had occurred all year, and a watered-down version of the full ordinance passed the Council in November of 1990. It extended full protection only to those with HIV/AIDS, and even then only to comply with the recently passed federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
Kansas City Star, April 26, 1990
Kansas City Star, May 11, 1990
Kansas City Star, November 11, 1990
Emmanuel Cleaver was elected mayor the following spring, after actively seeking the gay and lesbian community’s support in light of the impressive performance in the primary election by activist Jon Barnett, who ran for city council as an out gay man and garnered over 7,000 votes. Despite his courting of the community, Cleaver decided against proclaiming June 15-23 Gay and Lesbian Pride Week. Out of town when the decision was announced, a mayoral spokesman stated “It is his feeling that the issuance of such a proclamation would serve as a divisive force in our community and work against creating an inclusive and harmonious city”. The discord referred to was evident in the flood of calls to City Hall against the proclamation, the Pride Celebration, and gays and lesbians in general, spearheaded by one Connie Cierpiot, host of a local Christian radio show and leader of the anti-gay group FIRED-UP (Freedom Involves Responsibility Exposing Decadence and Upholding Principle).
To make matters worse, Cleaver later announced he was cancelling his original plans to attend the Pride picnic and parade out of concern for his safety. The feelings of betrayal this act engendered were made worse by Cleaver’s decision to attend the annual Jewel Ball on the Friday night before Pride. Normally it wouldn’t have mattered, but the organizers of the all-white debutante ball had neglected to send the Mayor an invitation and hand-delivered it just three days before the event. Cleaver and his wife would have been the first African-Americans attend in the event’s thirty-seven year history. These actions were seen by many in the gay and lesbian community as examples of long-standing Kansas City segregation and racism, and they were infuriated that the Mayor would kowtow to it.
So the day of the parade and picnic arrived, and Cleaver backtracked once again and wisely attended the picnic. He was cheered when he took the stage at Southmoreland Park and gave a rousing and dramatic speech.
Picnic crowd awaits Mayor Cleaver
Mayor Cleaver approaches the stage with community activist Keith Spare to his right.
Himself an ordained, practicing minister, Cleaver stated that “every single living being in this community must be respected…Over the past three weeks I have listened to people who call themselves Christian. And in the same sentence, they have the theological audacity to speak of other children of God as if they were trash. The God I serve ‘don’t make no trash'”.
Cleaver onstage.
His words were met with resounding cheers.
The crowd responds.
Even Mrs. Cleaver was caught up in the moment, taking the stage with a smile and nodding toward the Nelson-Atkins Museum across the street, site of the previous evening’s Jewel Ball: “After attending the Jewel Ball last night, I had to come to the high point of my weekend here today”.
The Cleavers’ appearance at the Pride Celebration not only healed wounds in the community, it had tangible results as well. During his speech, Cleaver announced the formation of an official commission to investigate the status of gays and lesbians in Kansas City and charged it with reporting back to him in sixty days. The commission’s work would greatly influence the passage of the non-discrimination ordinance in 1993.
By 1991, members of GALA were becoming more sophisticated in their efforts to raise funds for the annual Pride Celebration. That year they offered a 16-month calendar entitled “Kansas City Prime”, featuring beefcake photos of area men:
Travis, also the model for June
Mark
Doug
Jeff and Don
Mike
Dave and Paul
Doug
Tommy
Charles
Blair
J.D. and Steve
John
Tim and Gerry
There is no record of a corresponding calendar for the women’s community.
Kansas City’s 1990 Pride Celebration built on the success of the previous two years’ events and saw the return of a parade to the festivities. Papers from Gay and Lesbian Awareness, the organizers of Pride events during this period, indicate strong anti-parade sentiments when the subject was initially introduced in the fall of 1989. It was noted that when rumors of TV cameras at the 1989 Picnic spread, the crowd dissipated in quick fashion. Many Kansas Citians of 1989/90 were limited in the extent to which they wanted to be out. But GALA organizers were able to make a successful case for the Parade, and it was a significant component of that year’s commemoration.
1990 Pride Parade route
Prior reticence about marching in a parade evidently disappeared, as there were 29 entries in the 1990 Pride Parade! Businesses such as Phoenix Books and The Cabaret were represented, as were more unexpected organizations such as the Rainbow Society for the Deaf, the Onyx Society – A Minority HIV-Challenged Organization, and a local chapter of Dykes on Bykes. Grand Marshals were Susan Johnson and Keith Spare.
The 1990Pride Picnic and Parade program
One of two button designs for Pride 1990
The other button design from 1990