Many in the crowd that gathered for the annual Grand Pride Parade on Market Street in downtown St. Louis on Sunday, June 30, were surprised when a group of activists, some affiliated with Resist STL, began to protest Boeing, the lead sponsor of the Pride STLPride Fest 2024 parade. A number of protesters, some with their arms linked through tubes with slogans on them, such as “Black Lives for Palestine,” and “Remember Stonewall” blocked the parade for over an hour while chanting and holding signs proclaiming, “Bombs and war planes are not gay,” “Cops out of Pride parade.” Self-described as mostly LGBTQIA, the collective, which included five African Americans, protested the war in Gaza and what they consider Boeing’s “pinkwashing” of their production of munitions used by Israel.
A man in the crowd heckled the protesters, “This is St. Louis, not Palestine.” When the parade resumed, a young African American woman offered this perspective, ”While it did delay the parade, I’m always an advocate for peaceful protests. They came out to make a statement for what they believe in and they definitely delivered.”
Police took 19 protesters to the City Justice Center (CJC) on charges that included trespassing and resisting arrest, according to Evita Caldwell, Public Information Officer of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
African American protester Sarah Nixon, who was arrested on Sunday, said that Black queer people, “As a group, [we] were released after the white people were released and all were treated as Black people in this city by this carceral system are treated every day, which is like less than human.
The protesters arrested on Sunday were released that day and some held a press conference in front of the CJC at noon on Monday. They expressed their solidarity with Palestinians and the Black Lives Matter movement which gained a foothold in Ferguson, Mo. in response to the police killing of 18-year-old Mike Brown.
At the press conference, they echoed the calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and criticized their treatment by the police. Grace Iverson characterized the “inadequate food, water and medical care,” inside the facility as inhumane. Fen Hackfeld said toilet paper wasn’t easily accessible and trash piled up in a corner because no receptacles were provided. The protesters said the police were overly aggressive when they arrested them. Fen was still experiencing numbness in one arm a day later and was denied medication properly labeled in their backpack while in jail.
African American protester Sarah Nixon, who was arrested on Sunday, said that Black queer people, “As a group, [we] were released after the white people were released and all were treated as Black people in this city by this carceral system are treated every day, which is like less than human.”
When asked by the media about discrimination against LGBTQIA people in Gaza by Hamas, Fen noted the “Islamophobic trope” of the newscaster’s question and said, “Queer Muslims have existed in every place, all the time, forever.”
Fen and the collective spoke about the complexity of the repression LGBTQIA Palestinians face in Missouri as well as in Gaza and Israel. The group said Pridefest STL organizers ignored their requests to sit down and discuss their concerns weeks before the parade.
The St. Louis American spoke with The Grand Pride Parade Director Jordan Braxton for Pridefest 2024 who said, “Everyone has a voice and everyone’s voice should be heard and we wanted to come to an agreement for all parties involved [before the parade].” Braxton said she met with three representatives of the autonomous group of protesters before the parade and said, “They could have marched the entire parade route before the official parade and leafleted, as long as they didn’t jump the barricade because it’s my job to make sure they’re safe and the entire parade is safe.” Instead, Braxton was asked to return the money from the lead sponsor, which Braxton said they couldn’t do. However, Braxton did say she was “willing to talk about this coming year” and one of the organizers reached out to her on Monday immediately after the press conference ended.