[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 5699]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 24TH ANNUAL DC BLACK PRIDE CELEBRATION

                                  _____
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 28, 2015

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of 
Representatives to join me in celebrating the 24th annual DC Black 
Pride celebration Washington, D.C. on May 22-25, 2015.
  DC Black Pride 2015 is a multi-day festival featuring a reception, 
films, a poetry slam, a church service, educational workshops, 
community town hall meetings, a basketball tournament, awards ceremony, 
and a health and wellness expo, among other events. We in the District 
of Columbia are pleased and proud that the DC Black Pride celebration 
is widely considered to be one of the world's preeminent Black Pride 
celebrations, drawing more than 30,000 people to the nation's capital 
from across the United States as well as from Canada, the Caribbean, 
South Africa, Great Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.
  As the very first Black Pride festival, DC Black Pride fostered the 
beginning of the Center for Black Equity (formerly known as the 
International Federation of Black Prides, Inc. (IFBP)) and the ``Black 
Pride Movement,'' which now consists of 40 Black Prides on four 
continents. The Center For Black Equity, the celebration's organizing 
body, chose ``DC Black Pride 2015: 25! Inspiring a Movement, The 
Mission Continues'' as the theme for this year's celebration. This 
theme reflects the 25 years of connectedness of the Black Lesbian, Gay, 
Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community and its commitment to 
fulfilling the mission of DC Black Pride, which is to increase 
awareness of and pride in the diversity of the African American LGBT 
community. Moreover, the theme expresses the resolve of the African-
American LGBT community and its allies to come together to: fight for 
LGBT equality; celebrate our heritage and culture as members of both 
the Black and LGBT communities; and promote health and wellness for the 
community.
  DC Black Pride is a project of the Center For Black Equity and is 
coordinated by Earl D. Fowlkes, Jr. and Kenya Anthony Hutton with 
assistance from a volunteer Advisory Board, which coordinates this 
annual event and consists of: Andrea Woody-Macko; Genise Chambers-
Woods; Re'ginald Shaw-Richardson; Joseph F. Young; Cedric Harmon; 
Jeffrey Richardson; Angela Peoples; Thomas King; C. Hawkins; and Sonya 
Hemphill as well as scores of volunteers.
  I ask the House of Representatives to join me in welcoming all 
attending the 25th annual DC Black Pride celebration in Washington, 
D.C., and I take this opportunity to remind the celebrants that the 
American citizens who reside in Washington, D.C. are taxed without full 
voting representation in Congress.

                          ____________________