May 12, 2009


San Francisco Pride Announces Additional Grand Marshals
 

San Francisco, CA – 12 May 2009 – The San Francisco Pride Celebration Committee announced today that their membership selected Andrea Shorter as their choice for Individual Community Grand Marshal.

San Francisco Pride’s Board of Directors also selected Shannon Minter and Helen Zia as their second and third picks for Individual Community Grand Marshal. The Board each year may select up to three Individual Community Grand Marshals.

Along with their final choices for Individual Community Grand Marshals, the Board elected to bestow the annual honor of Organizational Community Grand Marshal on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in recognition of the stance the NAACP took in opposition to Prop 8.

San Francisco Pride’s Grand Marshals are the public emissaries of Pride. They represent a mix of individuals that have made significant contributions to the LGBT community.

With the help of community input, Pride selects these individuals as Grand Marshals in order to honor the work they have put into furthering the causes of LGBT people.

Previously selected Individual Community Grand Marshals include Joe Hawkins, couple Molly McKay and Davina Kotulski, and Shannon Minter.  Bill Beasley was selected by the Board of Directors at their May 5 meeting to receive the annual top honor of Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal.

 

 

About the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

 
   

One hundred years ago in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination. Today the California State NAACP boasts 62 branches and 30 youth units mobilized across the state to help ensure justice and equality for all.

 

 

 

 

About Shannon Minter
 Shannon Price Minter is the legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, where he served as lead counsel for same-sex couples in the California marriage case and in the challenge to Proposition 8.  He also serves on the board of Equality California and is an active member of the transgender community. 

About Andrea Shorter
 Andrea Shorter led And Marriage For All, a public education campaign reaching out to African Americans on the importance of same sex marriage equality.  She recently joined Equality California to its statewide coalition efforts with faith-based communities and communities of color for its recently launched campaign Win Marriage Back: Make it Real! to restore marriage for same sex couples.  A longtime advocate in the LGBT community, she is the co-chair of the Bayard LGBT Rustin Coalition, and is on the Board of Directors of the Alice B. Toklas Democractic Club. She is the former Deputy Executive Director of the NAMES Project Foundation/AIDS Memorial Quilt.  Andrea has served as a Trustee of the SF Community College District, and as a Treasurer of the LGBT Caucus of the California State Democratic Party.  She is President of the SF Commission on the Status of Women.

About Helen Zia

Helen Zia is an award-winning journalist and scholar who has covered Asian American communities and social and political movements for decades. She is the author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, a finalist for the prestigious Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. President Bill Clinton quoted from Asian American Dreams at two separate speeches in the Rose Garden.

Zia is former executive editor of Ms. Magazine. Her articles, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, books, and anthologies. She was named one of the most influential Asian Americans of the decade by A. Magazine.

A second-generation Chinese American, Zia has been outspoken on issues ranging from civil rights and peace, to women's rights and countering hate violence and homophobia. In 1997, she testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on the racial impact of the news media.

 

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About San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee (SFLGBTPCC):
The San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee (SFPride.org) is a non-profit membership organization founded to produce the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration & Parade. With its office located at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, SFLGBTPCC is dedicated to education, commemoration of LGBT heritage and celebration of LGBT culture and liberation. A world leader in the Pride movement, SFLGBTPCC is also a grant-giving organization through its Community Partners Program. Since 1997, SFLGBTPCC has granted over $1.4 million dollars from proceeds of the Pride Celebration and Parade to local non-profit LGBT organizations and those organizations serving the HIV/AIDS and breast cancer communities.

About the 2009 San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration & Parade:
This year marks the 39th anniversary of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration and Parade. This year's theme is "In Order to Form a More Perfect Union…," and the event will be held over the weekend of June 27 and 28, 2009. With over 200 parade contingents, 300 exhibitors, and more than twenty community-run stages and venues, San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration and Parade is the largest LGBT gathering in the nation. The two-day celebration is free and open to all. For more information please visit our website at SFPride.org.

  

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For Further Information Please Contact:

Brendan Behan
Deputy Executive Director
1800 Market Street, PMB #5
San Francisco, CA  94102
Cell (619) 347-3714
Phone (415) 864-0831 ext.102   Fax (415) 864-5889
media [at] sfpride.org

 

sfpride.org