ORLANDO | In partnership with Come Out with Pride, five local nonprofits will gather together to honor the diverse trailblazers within the LGBTQ community through art displays and culturally inspired performances at the Walt Disney Amphitheater at Orlando’s Lake Eola Park Oct. 13.
COWP, QLatinx, Bros in Convo, Orlando Gay Chorus, Central Florida Sounds of Freedom and Decolonizarte Teatro present “We Shall Overcome: Celebrating LGBTQ+ Diversity,” a presentation that will honor LGBTQ people of color who have impacted the community, says Daniel Downer, executive director of the Bros in Convo.
“We felt that it was such a powerful way in celebrating not only Pride but celebrating the diversity of Pride,” he says. “Celebrating the power and the beauty of the LGBTQ+ community. Black and Brown individuals who we know historically have been at the forefront of the movement for equity, for social justice, but often are erased from history and sometimes even excluded from Pride.”
This will be the fourth annual display of this event and the first time holding it in person since the pandemic.
“Orlando Gay Chorus fostered a partnership a few years ago with the Central Florida Sounds of Freedom and Color Guard, QLatinx, and Bros in Convo in order to highlight LGBTQ+ individuals of color who have shaped our community’s history,” says OGC’s board chair Sean Mundyschein. “We wanted to use music, testimonies, and art to depict the importance of these influential figures while lifting up those in our community who are continuing the trailblazing work today. We are thrilled to collaborate with Come Out With Pride this year as a featured COWP event and we hope many can enjoy this free evening with us!”
The event will also be offered through American Sign Language so that everyone will be able to enjoy the performance. Downer says guests can expect to be entertained, educated and empowered through dance and song. The evening will include speeches from community leaders and art displays created by artists of color.
There will also be a special guest and awards given out to local Black and Brown trailblazers. Recipients will represent different stages of the blossoming community: past, present and future. Recipients of these awards will be announced at the event.
“All the organizations that have come together kind of represent an embodied community,” Downer says. “Bros in Convo in particular. Our work is really around centering gay and queer folk of color, in particularly Black folks on a spectrum. Whether it’s African Americans, Afro Caribbean, Afro Latinx, we’ve really been instrumental in making sure that in the programming we are uplifting those Black LGBTQ+ trailblazers.”
“We Shall Overcome: Celebrating LGBTQ+ Diversity” is an official Come Out with Pride event and will be held Oct. 13 starting at 7 p.m. at Lake Eola Park’s Walt Disney Amphitheater in Orlando. This event is free to attend.
