With No Black Board of Directors Members, Boston Pride Announces It’s Dissolving Over Racial Equity Issues and Boycott from the Removal of ‘#Blacklivesmatter’ in a Statement

Boston Pride issued a statement on July 9th that the board is taking steps to close down the organization. Boston Pride has been active for the past 50 years as their statement reads and over the past year the organization has, “invested time and energy to address the concerns of the community, both with our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access work with Dorrington & Saunders and by forming the Transformation Advisory Committee comprised of members of the LGBTQIA+ community to help bring change to our organization.”

The statement continues, “It is clear to us that our community needs and wants change without the involvement of Boston Pride.” This is the reason given for dissolving Boston Pride. The statement concludes, “This decision was made with a heavy heart, out of love and hope for a better future.
-Boston Pride Board of Directors”

NEW: The Board of Directors for Boston Pride announce they’re dissolving the organization.

“There will be no further events of programming planned…” pic.twitter.com/69wLT124v3

— Mike Saccone (@mikesacconetv) July 9, 2021

The statement released by Boston Pride doesn’t cover the whole story it appears. A Boycott of Boston Pride was started after a statement was removed and rewritten to exclude “#blacklivesmatter”. Pride4thePeople website displays the call for action, the boycott of Boston Pride:

“In early June 2020, 80% of Boston Pride’s Volunteer Workforce resigned after the Pride Board removed “#blacklivesmatter” and rewrote a statement, written by the Communications Team, condemning unjust, racist police violence, and posted it without consulting the Chair of Black Pride or the Communications Team.

​The statement was met with public outrage over Boston Pride’s persistent and ongoing neglect of issues of racism and white-centeredness. Community leaders of color responded by organizing the Trans Resistance March and Vigil. Thousands convened at Franklin Park on what would have been the 50th anniversary of Boston Pride to bring Pride back to its roots and to protest police violence against the trans and gender nonconforming community.

​The resigned Volunteer Workforce, along with LGBTQ community leaders of color, demanded the current Pride Board step down, and proposed a transition plan to diversify the board and rewrite the bylaws to include power sharing, checks and balances, and transparency. The Board refused.” 

The call to action directs people not to participate, register or donate to Boston Pride until they develop, “in collaboration with Trans Resistance, community leaders of color, community organizations, and the resigned Volunteer Workforce.” According to the call to action, they want a board that represents the diversity of the community with the majority of the current board members resigning. The boycott also calls for a new governance structure with term limits and power-sharing with its volunteers.

It appears that Boston Pride did not want to be married to Black Lives Matter and this choice has is what led to the boycott and to them being accused of “neglect of issues of racism and white-centeredness”. From the statement released by Boston Pride, they made some effort to rectify the problem this caused and decided however to dissolve instead of meet the demands.

In response to the Bay Area Reporter’s article on this Facebook user, William Adama states:

“This is what happens when people try to turn an inclusive event for ALL MEMBERS OF THE GAY COMMUNITY into an event that caters to their own specific identities within the community. Sadly, not all gays support BLM, but keep in mind that gay pride is not a BLM event and a BLM event is not a gay pride event. Not all blacks like gays, plenty are quite opposed for religious reasons, same as whites. Pride was a wonderful thing where we could all come together and just enjoy the point of Pride, to commemerate Stonewall, something many people from different aspects of the “gay” community took part in. Now, with help of the upcoming generations that just can’t get their heads around inclusiveness means different opinions, and that events like Pride should be kept simple and inclusive, they wish to have special attention, well beyond which is already given. It seems most of us want to be inclusive, but keep it simple stupid. The point of Pride is to come together and celebrate as one, not freak out over our individual angst.”