From the Founder: Reflections in Song
Four years ago over drinks, my coworkers and I watched the snow fall beyond the window of a local bar. I was, at that time, the director of special events and the director of sales and marketing at OUT FRONT. We’d just wrapped up weeks of laying out the 2017 editorial and marketing program. Though it was chilly outside; I was daydreaming about the summer Pride season half a year away.
Suddenly, I sat up in my seat. “What if we had our own Pride event? What if we did an Aurora Pride event next year?”
Someone at the table said, “Aurora? Really? Aurora Pride?”
Having spent much of my youth in Aurora, I knew the reputation of the city better than most. For the proud Denverites amongst us, the city is the no-man’s land anywhere east of Colorado Boulevard and west of the Kansas border. However, having joined the Aurora Diversity Council just months before, I also knew the city was making moves.
I did a few hasty, back-of-the-envelope calculations, then laid out my case as coherently as possible. I stopped mid-sentence, “You know what, let me put together a presentation, and I’ll show you. It can be done.” I went home that evening exhilarated, mind alight with possibilities, never once considering how much work was to come.
Over the next eight months, my team and I worked harder than we’d ever thought possible, with total secrecy surrounding the project. Contractors and consultants signed NDAs. Nothing was to be announced before spring, especially if the endeavor turned out to be an impossible pipe-dream to animate in just eight months.
Shortly thereafter, we submitted the paperwork establishing the OUT FRONT Foundation. Its mission? To use Aurora Pride as a vehicle for a scholarship program benefiting students in minority-majority communities like Aurora.
The more I learned about the city and how much it had changed since my childhood, the more I fell in love. Aurora consistently ranks in the top 10 most diverse communities in America. The students of Aurora Public Schools speak nearly 150 different languages. The city has no LGBTQ bars, unlike Denver, and the city had never held a Pride event.
As a kid who grew up near the poverty line, I knew how unattainable college could be. Having survived a turbulent adolescence, I also knew that self-expression, and access to it, empowers future change-makers in our communities.
September 2, 2020 :: Healing Aurora with Pride
In spite of the long days and endless tasks required to bring such an event to life, I was constantly reminded that OUT FRONT was one such product of a pipe-dream. I’m confident Phil Price, the founder of OUT FRONT Magazine, had no idea his baby would serve the queer community for decades, not years, to come.
Long before Aurora Pride, I’d wonder privately where the next Phil Price might be hiding. Were they trapped in high school, desperately awaiting graduation day? Could they be hiding in a school restroom, bullied because their skin was the wrong color or because they couldn’t afford tuition at the best school? Certainly, that isn’t the justice our students or communities need.
The spirit of justice and the nature of service is the real origin story of Aurora Pride. With the innumerable hours spent by dozens, maybe hundreds, of stakeholders and city officials, we laid the foundations for an event which I hope long outlasts me.
Aurora Pride remains the crowning achievement of my professional life to date. I will never forget giving then-Mayor of Aurora Steve Hogan a tour of the site. We walked through the commons at the foot of the Aurora Municipal Center. Drag performers were doing a number on stage. Music filled the air; tents ringed the quad, and rainbow flags billowed in the wind.
For the first time in the history of Aurora, hundreds of queers of all stripes gathered together at an event no one believed possible at the time. Old and young, people of all races and genders, from cultures as different as they are the same. Under the scorching-hot summer sun, Steve and I took it all in together.
We looked at each other and said, “Good job.” Without his help, and the help of hundreds of others, we wouldn’t be standing together that day.
While Aurora Pride may look a little different this year, the heart and soul of this organization and the hardworking volunteer board members remains the same. We are united in the belief that if we all give just a little bit more, tomorrow will be better than today.
Though it may not feel like it, given the tidal wave of current events, we are on the threshold of a bold, diverse minority-majority America. The ascendancy of Latinx queers; young, Black kings and queens; the children of immigrants from the world over; and LGBTQ students, is upon us.
Related article: Expanding Queer, Latinx Art, One Card at a Time
They are our future business leaders and elected officials. They are our national wealth. They do not belong in cages at the border; they belong in the best schools and positions of influence at every level of every government.
Aurora Pride is our love song to you. We wrote it for every young person waiting for their chance to shine. We believe in you. You are loved. Most importantly, you are not alone.
This one’s for you.
Photos of Aurora Pride, 2019, by Veronica L. Holyfield
