Jamestown Pride

A Slow Roll Bike Ride by Pearl City Cycle will start downtown at 5:30 p.m. Friday. That will be followed by a free ages 21-and up event at 9:00 p.m. at Sneaker’s Bar on Harrison and Institute Streets that features burlesque troupe, Laced Up Ladies.

Jamestown Pride Coordinator Sheridan Smith said Saturday is the main Festival day starting at 8:30 a.m. with yoga at Comedy Center Park, followed by a Pride Flag Raising ceremony on Tracy Plaza at 9:30 a.m., “So that’s a really integral part of what we do, because there is a lot of celebration but this is showing the importance of the Queer community in Jamestown and Chautauqua County in general.”

Smith said the Pride market in conjunction with the opening of the Jamestown Public Market then takes place from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on West Third Street and part of North Main Street, “So the Pride market has all sorts of different things. The Rise Journey are actually some of our sponsors who are handling a question and answer tent. So you’ll be able to ask questions about the Queer community. If you’re in the Queer community and want to know more. If you’re outside of the Queer community, because it’s with the Public Market so we’ve set this up so many people will be there who don’t necessarily think they have a reason to celebrate Pride, so now they have a place to go to ask questions.”

Smith said other activities during the market include games, performances, story telling, other resource tables, as well as Pride merchandise vendors and food trucks.

Evening activities taking place at the Wintergarden Plaza include DJ Little Italy and performers Thee Suburbia, Islaya, and Daphne Always.

Pride festivities take place nationally in the month of June to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 and in support of the LGBTQ+ community.

All Jamestown Pride events on Saturday are free and family friendly.

For more information about Jamestown Pride Fest, visit facebook.com/JamestownPride.

The Stonewall “Riots,” named after a bar in Manhattan and now a national historic site, is often referred to as the birth of the modern movement for LGBTQ rights in the US.

Coffman will be on hand to share details of his involvement with the incident, as well explain how it spurred a civil rights movement for the LGBTQ community that is still active today, nearly 50 years later.

The event is free and open to the public.

The National Stonewall Rebellion Veterans’ Association (“S.V.A.”) is comprised of the actual, surviving and active veterans of the 1969 Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Transgender (“GLBT”) monumental 1969 Stonewall Rebellion at and the former regular patrons of The Stonewall Club at 51 and 53 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.

The S.V.A. was founded on the following Friday, July 11, 1969, literally just a stone’s throw from The Village in a big New York delicatessen / restaurant known as The Victoria Kosher Deli Restaurant on 14th Street, just off Fifth Avenue.

The S.V.A. organization is a cultural, historical, educational, advocacy and politically-aware, non-profit, volunteer organization primarily, but not exclusively, for the GLBT communities.  The S.V.A. is registered with the New York State Attorney General’s Charities Bureau and listed with the City of New York’s non-profit groups.