Land of 10,000 Loves: A History of Queer Minnesota

A History through Pride Guides

1973: The first Twin Cities Pride Guide is a single sheet of paper designed to be folded and thrown like a Frisbee in the event of a police raid. A History through Pride Guides 1975: Ruth Sherman is the first Grand Marshal of the Twin Cities Pride Parade. Approximately five hundred attend. 1976: A scandal erupts when bisexual activists suggest a “Bi-Centennial,” in reference to the America’s Bicentennial, and are ignored. 1974: About 350 attend the second annual event, which includes the first transgender speaker. 1977: The first booths and vendors set up in Loring Park, and the first parade marches down Hennepin Avenue. Previously, the “parades” were protest marches. 1978: The festival moves to St. Paul for the first and only time in a ceremonial gesture to the St. Paul community after it lost equal rights in a voter referendum . 1979: The rally, picnic, and parade become recognizable as a cohesive festival. 1980: More than two thousand attend, and a scandal erupts when the committee chooses “Cruising into the 80’s” as the year’s theme. 1981: Fresh Fruit airs the first public broadcast of Pride events through KFAI Radio. 1982: The Pride Committee removes Lesbian from its title, resulting in a “Great Split”: Women hold Lesbian Pride in Powderhorn Park and men remain in Loring Park. 1983: The city of Minneapolis allows street closures for the parade and pride-hosted block party for the first time. 1984: More than five thousand attend the festival, and a history exhibit in St. Paul’s Landmark Center commemorates the fifteenth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. 1985: The Pride Committee attempts to gate the festival and charge admission. Amid the AIDS crisis, the community rejected this decision. Attendance was low. 1986: The Minnesota AIDS Project organizes Pride after the committee disbands. A caped crusader, Captain Condom, distributes HIV/AIDS prevention materials. 1987: A new Pride Committee, supported by the GLCAC, hosts the event at Powderhorn Park and extends the parade route to two-and-a-half miles along 32nd Street. 1988: 7,500 attend the festival, and the Pride Committee shortens the parade route. 1989: The Pride Committee becomes independent, and registers as a nonprofit . Five Grand Marshals commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. 1990: The Twin Cities Pride Festival expands to a weeklong event, and more than fifteen thousand attend. 1991: More than twenty-five thousand attend popular Pride weekend events and the committee begins selecting festival vendors from a large pool of applications. 1992: More than a hundred vendors set up in Loring Park, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter debuts the History Pavilion, and fifty thousand enjoy the warm weather during Pride weekend. 1993: A transgender woman named Ashley Rukes coordinates more than a hundred entries in the Twin Cities Pride Parade, and seventy-five thousand attendees become “A Family of Pride.” 1994: The Pride Committee builds a second performance stage in Loring Park, and St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman refuses to sign a proclamation of GLBT Pride Month. 1995: Despite rainy weather, a hundred thousand take part in Pride events. Issues with Lavender Magazine result in a “Guideless Pride.” 1996: District 202 leads the Twin Cities Pride Parade, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune prints a one hundred-page Pride Guide. Corporations begin sponsoring the event. 1997: The committee moves pride to Nicollet Island while Loring Park is under reconstruction; Capital City Pride establishes in St. Paul. 1998: Two hundred thousand attend the festival in a reconstructed Loring Park despite rumors that the festival was on the verge of financial ruin. 1999: 108 Rainbow banners line Hennepin Avenue, commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and the founding of FREE. 2000: 250,000 attend, and the committee renames the parade in honor of Ashley Rukes to commemorate the director’s unexpected passing. 2001: 350,000 attend Pride weekend, and Beverly Little Thunder becomes the world’s first female Native American Grand Marshal. 2002: Minneapolis’s first African American mayor, Sharon Sayles Belton, is Grand Marshal—she dresses as Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. 2003: Four hundred thousand attend, despite mounting concerns related to corporate fund-raising and sexually explicit themes. 2004: Twin Cities Pride becomes the third-largest Pride event in the nation. Dr. Linnea Stenson, an...