Pride festivals popping up around rural southwest Michigan
Dowagiac, Mich. is the latest town to schedule a Pride event. Organizers say these events are a sign of change in their communities.
With the success of Pride events in rural areas in Southwest Michigan, Three Rivers Pride President Andrew George is optimistic about the future of LGBTQ+ affirmation in these communities.
Colin Eastman was born and raised in the small St. Joseph County town of Colon. Growing up in a religious military family, the 39-year-old says there was not much separating him from his neighbors. Except for one thing; Eastman is gay. And he says when he was young, that wasn’t something his town was eager to accept.
Eastman says growing up, he and other LGBTQ+ community members faced slurs and threats of violence.
At age 20, he followed his sister to California. Soon after, she took him to a Pride Festival in San Francisco. Eastman says he was amazed by the sea of people who not only accepted him for who he was but celebrated it.
“It was the first time I was able to go into a public space and feel completely safe,” he said, “and it changed my life.”
In 2018, Eastman returned to Colon to take care of his parents, where he still encountered ignorant beliefs about the LGBTQ+ community.
“All the information that they’re getting is from the TV,” Eastman said. “These pundits that are just trying to get people to sway this way or that way for votes and not really actually learning about these things.”
Still, Eastman says he could tell things had improved in the village. In 2021 he helped create a float for Colon’s Fourth of July Parade. A blue school bus draped with flags including those celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, with “Love Bus” written on the side. The Love Bus won second place for most creative float. For Eastman and the others who took part, it was a major accomplishment.
“We cried. Because we thought we would never see something like this, we were always scared that we will be hurt for doing something like that,” he said.
Since then they have not missed a single Colon Fourth of July Parade, and Eastman didn’t stop there. He also joined Sturgis Pride in 2022 to help revive it after it disbanded a few years prior.
This year in St. Joseph County, Three Rivers held its first Pride Festival, drawing about 4,000 people in a city of about 8,000. Andrew George, president of Three Rivers Pride, says the success of the event and others like it shows that things have changed in rural areas.
“I don’t think it’s a political issue anymore, and I think that’s why we ended up having such a smooth running first year,” George said, “Maybe in our minds, we still think it’s very divisive, but it’s not.”
This year Buchanan in Berrien County held its first Pride festival as well. And the Dowagiac City Council unanimously approved the first Cass County PrideFest in November, to be held in the city in June. Outcenter Southwest Michigan is behind the Pride festival. Program Director Gerik Nasstrom says with every successful event, the road for acceptance of Pride festivals becomes smoother.
“The more positive examples you can cite, the harder and harder it becomes for someone to argue against it,” Nasstrom said.
Eastman says he still sees room for things to improve in Colon, but the change it has seen is worth celebrating.
“Acceptance and tolerance does not happen overnight. And that’s one thing that we sabotage ourselves with, is we think it’s going to happen right away,” Eastman said. “Be patient, things will always get better.”
Eastman says the goal of these Pride events and his advocacy is not necessarily to make every single person an ally, but rather to make his community a place where he and other LGBTQ+ residents can live without fear.
Michael Symonds reports for WMUK through the Report for America national service program.
