A rainbow of balloons on Cookman Avenue. Mary Walton photo.
For the 21st year in a row, Asbury Park hosted the gay pride parade on Sunday. Although it featured groups from Monmouth and Ocean Counties, this parade and festival has grown into a statewide happening, with several corporate entries (Wells Fargo brought in a horse-drawn stagecoach) and a fair share of marching politicians. Mostly, though, in its flamboyance, it looks like something you might see in New Orleans.
Like most pride parades in the United States, the one in New Jersey is always held in June, in remembrance of the “Stonewall riots,” a series of Greenwich Village demonstrations, some of them violent, that erupted in June of 1969 in reaction to a police raid on a gay bar. Those demonstrations are considered a pivotal moment in the movement against gay persecution.
The only thing riotous at Sunday’s parade was the array of colors.
— Charles Layton
Unshirted enthusiasm. Mary Walton photo
Among many Grovers in attendance, Joan Caputo and Diane Davis. Mary Walton photo
Festival crowd. By Tracey James, Blogfinger photographer
Photo by Tracey James, Blogfinger staff
Diners at the sidewalk restaurants along Cookman had ringside seats for the parade. Photo by Mary Walton