WINDSOR RAISES PRIDE FLAG TO LAUNCH THE CITY’S FESTIVAL

The Pride flag was raised during the festival’s opening ceremony in Windsor’s City Hall Square. 1:22

CBC News
September 08, 2021

The Windsor-Essex Pride flag was officially raised at Windsor City Hall Square to celebrate this year’s Pride festival.

As the flag was raised, Wendi Nicholson, president of Windsor-Essex Pride Fest, said she felt a mix of emotions. She noted that the city has come a long way.

“The strides that we’ve taken over the past 30 some years that I’ve been out, where you couldn’t even walk down the street and bump shoulders with each other and not have slurs thrown at you to now, where you can walk down the street holding your significant other’s hand,” Nicholson said.

“All those things, they just rush to me when I see that flag coming up.”

Part of this year’s festival is dedicated to honouring Indigenous communities.

After discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves were made at a number of residential schools, the festival chose to reach out to members of the Indigenous community.

Mona Stonefish, a Mohawk Elder and residential school survivor, spoke at the event.

“The human family is the human family,” Stonefish said. “All of our cultures are different. We have different ways of doing things.”

According to Nicholson, a board member of the festival is part of the Indigenous community.

“We felt that it would be an amazing thing to incorporate it with everything that’s going on with the residential schools, that we could incorporate the Indigenous theme to our flag raising this year, just to honour them,” she said.

The celebration of the LGBT community will run from Friday Sept. 10 to Sunday Sept. 12 at Lanspeary Park.