Some entries restored for scaled back 2024 Chicago Pride Parade
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Some slots have been restored for entries at the Chicago Pride Parade this year, after the number of participants was reduced due to safety concerns.
The Mayor's office announced Friday that the city has been in discussions with the Mayor's Advisory Council on LGBTQ+ Affairs, Chicago Pride Parade organizers, the business community, residents, and city agencies to come up with a plan for the parade upon which everyone could agree.
The parties came to a decision that 150 entries would be allowed in the parade, up from a cap of 125. This will allow additional community organizations and schools to take part in the parade, the Mayor's office said.
The new cap still allows for fewer than last year, when there were 199.
After the announcement that the parade would be scaled back, the Mayor's Advisory Council on LGBTQ+ Affairs and Chicago Pride organizers had called on Mayor Brandon Johnson to restore the parade to its original capacity. They noted that the first pride march in occurred just a year after the Stonewall riots in New York, and Chicago was one of the first four American cities to have such an event.
The plans to scale back the annual event came as the city continues to grapple with reduced police staffing after the pandemic left the department with 1,400 fewer officers than it had in 2020, according to a CBS Data Team analysis of Inspector General data.
The Mayor's office also announced that the parade will kick off at Sheridan Road and Broadway rather than Broadway and Montrose Avenue, allowing for major arterial and side streets to open up safely for vehicle and traffic access, and to provide more opportunities for spectators to gather on the east side of the parade route.
However, the Mayor's office did not specify which intersection of Sheridan Road and Broadway would be the new starting point for the parade route. The two roads intersect three different times.
A map posted by PRIDEChicago has since clarified that the new parade starting point is the intersection of Broadway and West Sheridan Road in Lakeview – where Broadway is running on the alignment of Halsted Street, and West Sheridan Road on the alignment of Byron Street. This cuts five city blocks north to south from the parade route, and removes the Uptown neighborhood from the route altogether.
Broadway also crosses North Sheridan Road diagonally a fraction of a block south of Montrose Avenue in Uptown. If this had been the new starting point, it would not have really meant any change from past years.
Miles north of anywhere the Pride Parade route has ever been, Broadway and Sheridan Road also meet on the boundary of Edgewater and Rogers Park near Loyola University – where Sheridan Road turns east-west along the alignment of Devon Avenue to shift two blocks, and then takes over Broadway going north along the alignment of Racine Avenue.
The parade for the past several years has proceeded south and southeast on Broadway, south on Halsted Street, east on Belmont Avenue, south on Broadway again, and east on Diversey Parkway before ending in the park of Lincoln Park.
The plans to scale back the annual event came as the city continues to grapple with reduced police staffing after the pandemic left the department with 1,400 fewer officers than it had in 2020, according to a CBS Data Team analysis of Inspector General data.
The parade on Sunday, June 30, this year will step off at 11 a.m. – an hour earlier than usual.
The theme for this year's parade, announced last month, is "Pride is Power." The parade this year will highlight the role the parade has played over the years in creating visibility and advocating for change in Chicago and the surrounding area's LGBTQ+ community, organizers said.
Comedian and author Fortune Feimster and her wife, Jax Smith, will be the grand marshals for this year's parade.