June is Pride Month. This month has been federally designated since 1999 under various names, including: Gay & Lesbian Pride Month, LGBT Pride Month, and LGBTQI+ Pride Month. In Proclamation 7203, the first proclamation recognizing Pride Month, President Clinton recognized the history behind Pride saying, “Thirty years ago this month, at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, a courageous group of citizens resisted harassment and mistreatment, setting in motion a chain of events that would become known as the Stonewall Uprising and the birth of the modern gay and lesbian civil rights movement.”
In celebration of Pride Month, the Michigan School of Psychology is highlighting the origins of Pride celebrations in Michigan and sharing opportunities to join in this year.
Detroit’s Pride celebrations, now called Motor City Pride, began with a march against homophobic laws in June of 1972. The march was expanded to include a picnic before eventually being moved to Lansing. When the march moved to Lansing, organizers in Metro Detroit began hosting a festival, which has evolved into the Motor City Pride we know today. This year, the Motor City Pride festival will be taking place on Saturday, June 7th, and Sunday, June 8th, with the Pride parade taking place at noon on Sunday.
In 1988, the first Grand Rapids Pride Celebration took place at the Monroe Amphitheater. The celebration was started by members of The Lesbian and Gay Community Network of Western Michigan who had just returned from the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Grand Rapids Pride Festival will be taking place on Saturday, June 21st.
In 2014, after a mother of four questioned why Traverse City didn’t have its own Pride Celebration, a group of individuals decided to host a Visibility March through downtown. The march has evolved into one of the largest Pride celebrations in the state, known as Up North Pride. In 2025, Up North Pride will be hosting its Rainbow Run on Saturday, June 21st, along with a variety of other events throughout the month.
The City of Lansing has held an annual Pride festival since 1989, when the celebration was moved from Detroit due to increasing political activism and a desire to attract more participation from across the state. This year, Lansing Pride Festival will be taking place on Saturday, June 28th.
Ann Arbor Pride began as OUTFest in 1995 and has been hosted by the Jim Toy Community Center ever since. The Jim Toy Community Center is named for Jim Toy, who was the first man to be “publicly out” in Michigan. Ann Arbor Pride will be taking place on Saturday, August 2, this year.
