Friday's parting shots

Steven shared these photos from this evening ... as the 25th annual Drag March left Tompkins Square Park and headed west along Ninth Street...





More photos tomorrow...

The Drag March is tonight

[Photo from 2018 by Stacie Joy]

The 25th annual Drag March is tonight ... starting in Tompkins Square Park, where hundreds of participants will being gathering at 7 before making their way over to Sheridan Square and then the Stonewall Inn.

The Drag March got its start during the Stonewall 25th anniversary celebrations in 1994.

Here's a HuffPost piece with more history:

Brian Griffin, aka Harmonie Moore Must Die, was a member of the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP and Women’s Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM) in the mid-1990s, an activist who saw the power of drag to confront intolerance and practice civil disobedience in a way that also celebrated queerness. But at planning meetings for the Stonewall 25th anniversary celebrations, Griffin told HuffPost, the committee made it clear that it was only interested in presenting a somewhat sanitized version of LGBTQ activism.

“The committee for Stonewall 25 had actually asked — and it still seems quite unbelievable — that they didn’t want anyone to show up in leather or drag. It still, 25 years later, blows my mind,” Griffin said. “They wanted to normalize the image of gay America for a mass audience. They wanted to present a palatable image of gay men and women, men and women who were normal.”

This year, of course, marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.

You can revisit photos from last year here.

At the start of the 2018 Drag March

Dozens (hundreds?) of beautiful queens and kings gathered in Tompkins Square Park early last evening for the annual Drag March — the kick-off to NYC Pride weekend.

Joined by a small NYPD presence and a lot of photographers, the group made their way west to the Stonewall Inn.

EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared these photos ...





























... and Grant Shaffer shared as the March was getting underway on Ninth Street ...

Friday's parting shot(s)

A few photos from the annual Drag March, which started in Tompkins Square this evening... before the walk to the Stonewall Inn.

Steven shared these photos... have more from EVG contributor Stacie Joy to post later...

At the 2017 Drag March

The annual Drag March departed Tompkins Square Park this evening for the walk to the Stonewall Inn.

Participants tonight were asked to remember Gilbert Baker, the creator of the Rainbow Flag and co-founder of the Drag March in 1994 (with Brian Griffin aka Harmonie Moore Must Die).

Here are photos from EVG contributor Stacie Joy...

At the Drag March part 2

As promised, more photos from last evening's Drag March, which started in Tompkins Square Park ... at Avenue A and East Ninth Street.

The group, which Gothamist put at two-blocks long, marched to the country's newest landmark, The Stonewall Inn.

The photos on this post are via from EVG contributor editrrix. Find more of her photos here.