UC San Diego Team Wins Spirit Award at Pride Parade

August 17, 2009 | Ioana Patringenaru

For this year’s San Diego Pride Parade, the team assembled by the UC San Diego LGBT Resource Center decided to break down some walls—albeit foam ones—and was rewarded for it. Last month, they won The Spirit of Pride Award, as part of the parade and surrounding events.  

Members of the UCSD community who took part in the San Diego Pride Parade pose with their Spirit of Pride Award at the campus' LGBT Resource Center.

“We are so proud that the San Diego LGBT Pride organization recognized the hard work of our community in really representing the spirit of pride,” said Shaun Travers, director of the LGBT Resource Center.

The UCSD team had won the award back in 2003. “It was really wonderful to win it again,” Travers said. This year’s theme for the parade was Activism for Equality: Stonewall 2.0. It refers to the Stonewall riots, which took place in 1969 in New York City and are considered one of the landmark events in the gay rights movement in the United States. 

The UCSD team decided to include a literal representation of stone walls in the parade, said Anthony Nunez, Travers’ assistant, who coordinated this year’s parade efforts. So they took foam blocks and painted them red with dark grouting to simulate brick walls. The “walls” were outfitted with handles and carried by members of the UCSD contingent during the parade.

To add a dimension to the display, the team decided it wanted to honor important members of the LGBT community and spotlight major issues. So, during the parade, two of the walls would break apart and a participant emerged, holding either a portrait or a sign.

Signs highlighted issues, including immigration equality, access to higher education for LGBT youth and don’t ask don’t tell. “Everybody has completely different stances on all of these issues—even in our community,” Nunez said. “But we decided to highlight them because they’re important.” Meanwhile, portraits pictured gay rights activists such as author Audre Lorde and Stonewall veteran Sylvia Rivera. 

In all, about 45 people turned out to march with the UCSD LGBT Resource Center during the parade last month, including the 20-member UCSD pep band. More than a dozen people helped make the walls, portraits and signs for the parade. Nunez estimates it took about 14 hours to plan and put together the prize-winning displays. It was all worth it, he said.

“It felt really good to have all that work honored,” said Nunez, who shepherded the project for more than a month.

During the parade, members of the UCSD community held up signs and portraits of important members of the LGBT community.