Today was the Pride Rally for Spring Pride 2009, and it was marvelous! The speakers included Steph Parrish, Salt Lines, Jeff Sheng, and Ralph Williams.

I will update this with pictures as soon as I have them, but until then imagine the diag cool and open. It was sunny and music was blaring through the speakers. There were rainbows everywhere: big flags, a huge banner being carried by two people, on shirts, buttons, and ribbons. Then Chris Armstrong, Mical DeGraaff, and Amy Dickinson walked up the steps to the grad library to the spot where the microphones stood. They welcomed everyone to the Spring Pride 09 Rally, and the crowd responded with cheers and applause. They proceeded to invite the first speakers, Salt Lines, to the mic. Salt Lines performed one piece as a group, Tara Hardy performed solo, followed by another solo performance by Andrea Gibson. I have separated these three performances for your listening pleasure. (Note: There was a bible thumper on the diag with us, you can here him at the begining of the group performance. I do not know why his chants of, "a man, and a woman, get married," faded away, but I am glad that they did. It is a foreshadowing of our future as a nation.)

Salt Lines

Tara Hardy

Andrea Gibson

After this, Steph Parrish, a student, shared a personal story that I did not record. Jeff Sheng, creator of the photo documentary "Fearless" spoke next. He mentioned his exhibition that was going on this week, but the majority of his airtime was a story about the California prop 8 talks that have been happening in the past few weeks. I recorded it, but did not do the work to be able to get it up here. It will be up eventually.

The amazing Ralph Willaims brought the rally to a close with a rowsing speech. I recommend that you listen to it.

Here are links to people I talked about in this post:

2009 Pride Week (Program PDF | Video)

Salt Lines (Myspace)

Jeff Sheng (Fearless | His Website)

Ralph Williams (His Website)