Photos: Chicago Goes Big For 48th Annual Pride Parade

By Staff in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 26, 2017 5:00AM

An estimated 1 million people lined the streets of Boystown, Lakeview, Buena Park and Lincoln Park Sunday morning to celebrate LGBTQ pride in Chicago. And the parade went big, with about 150 floats and 6,000 marchers, which included Mayor Rahm Emanuel and several other politicians.

Illinois native and queer actor Lea DeLaria was the parade's grand marshal this year, as the parade snaked south from Montrose Avenue to Diversey Parkway. Many candidates for the upcoming Illinois Governor's race marched in the parade as well, including North Side Ald. Ameya Pawar, J.B. Pritzker, Daniel Biss and Chris Kennedy. Gov. Bruce Rauner was not in the parade.

The parade was briefly shut down by a coalition of trans people and other activists with Black Lives Matter Chicago, Jewish Voice for Peace, Assata's Daughters, Pilsen Alliance and others, who protested the event and put out a statement denouncing the parade's ever-increasing corporatization, whitewashing, gentrification, racism, and cisnormativity."