Twin Cities Pride Parade
Nicollet Avenue, Marquette Avenue, 24th Street W., Lyndale Avenue, and 32nd Street by various routes, (1972-2010)
The Twin Cities Pride Parade began as a 50-strong protest march on the (newly-built) Nicollet Mall in 1972. Downtown shoppers and office workers composed a majority of the event's few spectators, and of these, few had “the foggiest idea what [the marchers] were talking about.”(1) Americans were still fighting in the Vietnam War, and this produced countless protest marches. Gay Pride appeared to be just another slogan on hand-painted pickets; the concept garnered little attention.
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The second Twin Cities Pride March on the Nicollet Mall, 1973. Courtesy of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection. |
In 1987, the Committee chose a route away from Loring Park that stretched from Lake Calhoun to Powderhorn Park along 32nd street. The 2-mile path exhausted participants, bored attendees, and threatened to event’s future. Some even referred to that year's parade as "the death march."(2)
Ashley Rukes on the cover of Gaze Magazine, 1993. Courtesy of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection. |
Hope came in the form of a transgender woman with a penchant for military fashion. Ashley Rukes, who directed the Aquatennial Parade in 1975, first volunteered her expertise in 1992. Rukes initiated communication with Minneapolis Police, established a pioneering lineup system for the parade’s many contingents, and encouraged even the smallest groups to participate.(3)
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(1) Tretter, Jean-Nickolaus. Interview with the author and Jacob Gentz. January, 2009. This page is still under contruction. --SVC
(2) Hill, David Wayne. Interview with the author and Jacob Gentz. May, 2009.
(3)"Parade Coodinator Ashley Rukes Rounds up Family of Pride." Twin Cities Gaze, Issue 193: January 28, 1993.
(4)Miller, Nicole. "She Loved a Parade," Twin Cities Pride Guide, 2001. Page 17.
Part of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN: 100 Queer Places in Minnesota History, (1860-1969), (1969-2010)