Parade, panels and Pride on the Plaza scheduled for annual celebration
APRIL 25, 2024
The Oxford Pride Week returns bigger than ever this year with 11 scheduled events throughout the week of April 28.
The Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies, in collaboration with the University of Mississippi and community partners, will host the eighth annual Oxford Pride Week April 28-May 4. This year’s theme is “Toward a Queer Renaissance.”
Pride Week, first held in Oxford in 2016, is an opportunity for the entire community to celebrate, said Jaime Harker, Isom Center director.
“This is a really great opportunity for folks to feel central to the story instead of marginal, to feel that who they are is something to be celebrated and to have folks both in the community and allies cheering them on,” Harker said.
“The LGBTQ+ community in Mississippi is amazing. Since I moved here 20-plus years ago, I’ve just been so pleased and astounded and proud to be part of it, and I want to make sure that folks who live here, both in the community and allies, understand what a special thing it is.”
Jaime Harker
The Oxford Pride Parade will honor longtime university professors Gail Stratton and Pat Miller as grand marshals. The parade will also honor Jay Lee as an honorary grand marshal.
Miller and Stratton have been keystone members of the LGBTQ+ community in Oxford for decades, Harker said. Both women marched in Oxford’s first pride parade in 1992, which was organized by the National Organization of Women, and were instrumental in the founding of the north Mississippi chapter of PFLAG.
“We are both so deeply honored about being named the grand marshals for this year,” Stratton said. “We have seen such positive changes in Oxford and this country in the last 30 years, and yet we still find ourselves in such sobering and perilous times.
“I am so very proud of the young folks who know who they are and know in their bones that the world must make room for them.”
Jay Lee was an active member of the LGBTQ+ community before his disappearance in July 2022.
“It’s such a tragic loss, and I think it reminds us how important it is to support members of the community,” Harker said. “This is a way to celebrate the impact he’s had on Oxford and the larger community and the kind of activism and work that people are doing here.
Though Oxford Pride Week has grown since its start in 2016, the heart of the celebration remains the same.
“This is a real opportunity to celebrate the diversity of queer culture in Mississippi and it’s for everyone,” Harker said. “Whatever way you want to participate, there’s a place for you.
“It’s a legacy of which we should all be proud. I want all members of our community to feel that there’s a place for them here because there is.”
Sunday (April 28)
- Open Dialogue: Faith, Spirituality and LGBTQIA+ Connection, 2 p.m., St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
- Pride in the Park, 3:30 p.m., Stone Park
Monday (April 29)
- Let Me Be Perfectly Queer: An Evening of Poetry and Creative Writing, 6:30 p.m., LGBTQ+ Lounge in Lamar Hall
Tuesday (April 30)
- Drag Q&A, 5:30 p.m., LGBTQ+ Lounge, Lamar Hall
Wednesday (May 1)
- Southtalks: “Faulkner’s Enduring Queerness,” noon, Tupelo Room in Barnard Observatory
- Drag Queen Bingo, 6:30 p.m., Jackson Avenue Center
Thursday (May 2)
- Lavender Graduation, 5 p.m., Gertrude C. Ford Ballroom, The Inn at Ole Miss
Saturday (May 4)
- Pride in the Valley, 9 a.m., participating LGBTQ+ businesses in Water Valley
- Oxford Pride Parade, 2 p.m., Oxford Square
- Pride on the Plaza, 3 p.m., Student Union Plaza
- Drag Show Fundraiser: May the Pride Be with You, 8 p.m., The Lyric