Black Pride Events Face Growing Financial Crisis
Organizers say shrinking sponsorships, DEI backlash, and political pressure are threatening Black Pride celebrations nationwide.
LGBTQ Black Pride events and Washington, D.C., share a compelling history that goes as far back as at least the late 19th century. That’s when William Dorsey Swann, a former slave, was hosting parties of Black men in fine ladies’ attire. It was enough to get him and some fellow celebrants thrown in jail. It’s also why city leaders more recently moved to commemorate the already existing Swann Street NW in his honor in this century.
But just as Swann navigated the fraught terrain between party and peril, so too do the Black Pride celebrations of today. As Kenya Hutton, president and CEO of the D.C.-based Center for Black Equity (CBE), prepares for this year’s D.C. Black Pride, May 22 to 25, he says there are warning signs flashing for his and similar events around the country, if not the world.
“They were already historically underfunded compared to the mainstream Prides,” Hutton says of the 57 Black Pride events affiliated with the CBE, from Los Angeles to Lexington, Ky., to Lagos, Nigeria. “What’s happening now is we’re seeing that the funding is drying up. I understand mainstream Prides are not seeing the money coming in — the sponsorships, the foundations, the support they were used to having.
“But if mainstream Prides are experiencing that, Black Prides were already getting a crumb. Now it’s even worse. When a major funder doesn’t come through, they’re scrambling to figure out how to make things work, they’re downsizing, collapsing events. Some aren’t making it. They’re already closing their doors and saying they’re not going to be able to do it this year. Some Prides have asked me not to mention it yet, because they haven’t made a public announcement that they’re going to go to a two-year schedule. Because right now, year-to-year is just not financially feasible.”
What’s happening elsewhere may be felt more intensely in D.C. Not only is the city home to the CBE, but it is the site of the first Black Pride event in 1991. But DC Black Pride and all its Black Pride peers know resilience. Still, these are tough times. Hutton recently polled Black Pride leaders and uncovered a landscape of hope mixed with hesitancy, resolve weighed down by warnings.
Flecia Harvey is past president and current CEO of Pittsburgh Black Pride. She responded to Hutton’s CBE survey with detailed thoughts on the state of Pittsburgh’s issues.
“Our organization is currently facing significant financial challenges,” she began. “We cannot operate without consistent grant funding and sponsorship support, and, over time, these resources have become increasingly limited. At this point, we are operating with minimal financial capacity, which puts our programs, outreach efforts, and community events at serious risk.
“The instability of funding — especially unexpected sponsorship withdrawals — has placed us in a vulnerable position. As a grassroots organization serving Black LGBTQ+ individuals, the need for our services continues to grow, yet our financial resources have declined.”
Black Pride leaders were also asked to identify root causes of funding declines. Some pointed to particular companies pulling back. Many highlighted resources being shifted to mainstream Pride events, despite Black Prides arguably addressing disproportionately outsized needs among the Black LGBTQ community.
In Jacksonville, Fla., Tayden Haile, president of Swamp Pride, reported a funding decrease of more than 50 percent in the past five years. Like others who responded, he partially blames corporate abandonment of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts for the shortfall.
“Broadly, there has been a contraction in corporate and philanthropic giving, with many funders shifting priorities or reducing diversity-focused investment,” he wrote, in part.
Carmen Neely, president and CEO of New York’s Harlem Pride, has been shepherding her organization through historic highs and lows. World Pride in New York in 2019 was great for funding, while Covid killed any sponsorship. Harlem Pride held on, but took another hit with the 2024 election.
“The new administration cut funding programs for organizations that service our constituents, put pressure on corporations, and removed resources,” she observed. “As a result, our 2025 sponsorships decreased by about 20 percent.”
Politics definitely plays a part in the funding woes. Thea Williams, president of Pride & Promote Los Angeles, was most succinct in pointing to a particular cause: “Trump.”
Unlike the other eight respondents, however, Neely alone reported that her organization has clawed back some of that funding. Everyone else rated their five-year funding trend as either a “moderate” or “significant” decrease.
Hutton, who can still name a number of business and nonprofit sponsors for Black Pride, says the effort nonetheless may need to depend more on community and less on corporations in the future.
“If we can figure out a way to crack the code to get us back to where the community feels compelled to put money back into these spaces, we would be fine,” he says, calculating that a $50 per-person admission to last year’s DC Black Pride would have covered everything and then some.
“That would’ve supported the entire Black Pride network for at least two years,” he says. “We’ve got to get back to that so we’re not dependent on corporate sponsors. All of the official events we put on, they’re free of charge. We don’t charge anybody a dollar. The poetry slam, film festivals, workshops — this year we have a Grammy Award winner performing for free!”
In the meantime, Hutton says he and his Black Pride peers are leaning into the community’s resilience, as well as collaborating at an unprecedented level. Hutton adds that he is hopeful that generations of accumulated wisdom will help guide the leaders together and see them through this downturn.
“I’m actively writing grants to create what I’m calling the Black Pride Griot Project,” he says, noting that a formalized repository of such knowledge may be key to growing Black Prides in the future, whatever the obstacles. “The founders, the people who started Prides around the country, we want to connect them with the people doing the organizing now so they’ll have people to fall back on. What did it look like under previous hostile administrations? How did you survive? It’s important for leaders who step into this role to have that.”
To make a donation to the Center for Black Equity’s Save Black Prides fundraiser, visit centerforblackequity.org/saveblackprides.
DC Black Pride is May 22 to 25, at the Westin DC Downtown, 999 Ninth St. NW. Visit dcblackpride.org.
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