5th Annual Pride South Side celebrates LGBTQ+ community at DuSable Museum

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Pride Month has ended, but celebrations are still underway.

The Fifth Annual Pride South Side just wrapped up its first day on Saturday evening at the DuSable Museum. Organizers and attendees said they're living their lives out loud despite recent Supreme Court rulings affecting their communities.

"Always gonna be safe, always gonna be welcoming and will not just celebrate our queerness, but our culture as Black and Brown folk," said Adrienne Armer with Pride South Side.

Armer said the fifth year of Pride South Side is even more meaningful in light of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of a wedding website designer who refuses to work with gay couples.

"If businesses don't want our colorful dollars, I'd like to see the communities clap back, create a database of the businesses that don't want our money and don't want to support our community, so don't support their businesses," Armer said.

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On Saturday at DuSable, there was a celebration of vendors, artists and artisans working to uplift the LGBTQ+ community.

"Probably the highest concentration of Black and Brown queer vendors you'll get in the city of Chicago this summer. We've got artists and musicians that are performing," Armer said.

Rashaud Bell said Pride South Side caters to LGBTQ+ people of color as a way to raise up those communities who are often overlooked.

"We really thought it was important for us to be able to bring this kind of an event to the South Side, to be able to help people, make them feel like they're actually at home, and this is their community, too," Bell said. "My hope today is when everybody leaves here, they have a different perception of what the South Side can bring, and they have a different perception of what the LGBTQIA+ community is."

And, he says, in light of recent events, this is the perfect time for a festival like this.

"Due to the Supreme Court decision, these kinds of events are more important than ever because we have to continue to uplift our marginalized communities and show people that we're people, too, and that we can actually be a part of the community and be productive citizens of the community, too," Bell said.