The second annual Minnesota People of Color Pride will be held over the weekend with a Pride Festival in the Park on Saturday and a Mondo Queer Beach Party on Sunday.
Saturday will feature POC Pride’s Festival in the Park held at Harrison Park in Minneapolis’ Harrison neighborhood in North Minneapolis from noon to 5pm. The event will have “Art Making, Prison Letter Writing, Revolutionary Pick-up Basketball, Art Auction for POW, Spades, Revolutionary Trivia, and FUN,” according to the event’s Facebook page.
The Mondo Queer Beach Party: POC Pride Edition will be held on Sunday at Lake Nokomis from 2 to 5pm.
The organizers note that both events have been created by and for LGBTQ people of color and are asking white allies who may be interested in attending to evaluate their need to be there:
“We won’t stop anyone from coming, but this is an event by and specifically for queer and trans people of color to promote community and shared healing. Please think twice before you decide to bring yourself into this space. ♥”
POC Pride is looking for donations to help cover the costs of producing the events and have set up a Gofundme:
In 2015 a group of us came together in Minneapolis because we decided we need spaces as Queer, Trans, Indigenous, People of Color (QTIPOC) to celebrate OUR Pride. A Pride where Black Lives Matter. A Pride that loves on our Trans identities. A Pride that values our people, not corporations.
Together, we brought you Relative Melanin (the DOPEST dance party for QTIPOC in the Twin Cities), Mondo Queer Beach Party: POC Pride Edition (planned by the Gender Revolution 8, headed up by radical trans, gender non-conforming, and intersex youth) and a small but mighty festival on Raspberry Island. This, we did with your love, and NO budget.
We’re back in 2016 and going hard to bring MN QTIPOC Pride — MORE celebration space to bring our full and vibrant selves. MORE spaces of resistance to white supremacy and corporatization. MORE programming for/by youth. And to do this we need YOUR help!