Kick Off Pride Month In Old Ellicott City With Mascara Run, Art Fair, Live Music, Dance

ELLICOTT CITY, MD — Pride Month starts Thursday and continues through June with several ways in Ellicott City to participate in the celebration of LGBTQ culture, rights and identity.

Pride Month occurs during June in deference to the Stonewall Uprising, a tipping point in the struggle for equality among people who identify as LGBTQ. New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969. Such raids were common, but patrons fought back, resulting in days of violent clashes across Greenwich village.

The observance started as Gay Pride Day on the last Sunday in June, but soon grew to the point that June calendars are packed with pride parades, parties, workshops, symposiums and concerts across the nation and around the world.

“LGBTQ people are under fire, unlike possibly ever before and across virtually every aspect of our lives,” Logan S. Casey, a senior researcher at Movement Advancement Project, told The Washington Post in April. “This is part of a very clear and identifiable national effort in state legislatures that is and has been going on for years — and it’s really culminating this year.”

In Old Ellicott City, celebrate Pride and the diverse community of Howard County with the return of the Mascara Run, the art fair and drag story hour. Throughout town find live music, special performances, a special movie presentation of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and more.

Lot F will be full of fun Saturday starting at noon with a dance DJed by DJDeezy and a local art fair. Live music happens from 3 to 7:30 p.m. with a group wedding/vow renewal and drag show. Find more vendors and live music on lower Main Street with Oella River Band rocking the street 1 – 4 p.m. on Saturday and 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday at B&O Plaza.

On Sunday at 11 a.m. there will be drag story hour at Backwater Books and the art fair moves to the EC Pops/Ooh La Lal parking lot just off Main Street on Old Columbia Pike.

Check out all of the Pride activities in Old Ellicott City here.