WMUK News

Pride festivals pop up around rural Southwest Michigan

WMUK | By Michael Symonds

Published December 11, 2023 at 12:00 PM EST

Andrew George stands in front of the rainbow drenched sign for Three Rivers Pride. He wears a dark blue button shirt with tiny white spots covering it and a matching blue baseball cap. The room he stands in shouts with pink coloring, with a crocheted blue Cookie Monster from Sesame Street being just one of many items decorating the room. — With the success of Pride events in rural areas in Southwest Michigan, Three Rivers Pride President Andrew George is optimistic about the future of LGBTQ+ affirmation in these communities.

Organizers say the events are a sign of change in their communities.

This story includes an antigay slur.

Colin Eastman was born and raised in the small St. Joseph County town of Colon.

Growing up in a religious military family, the 39-year-old said there was not much separating him from his neighbors.

Except for one thing; Eastman is gay, and he said when he was young, that wasn’t something his town was eager to accept.

Colin Eastman sits in a booth at a diner in downtown Colon. He wears a dark blue sweater with brown geometrical patterns. A trophy sits on the white table in front of him, its red white and blue color scheme is only interrupted by the shiny gold colored top and bottom of the award. — Colin Eastman says that growing up in Colon, he was insulted, threatened and discriminated against because of his sexual orientation. But he says attitudes have changed.

I met Eastman at the Magic Capital Grille in downtown Colon.

Eastman said growing up, he and other LGBTQ+ community members faced slurs and threats of violence.

Eastman recalled one incident when he was 12 years old visiting a relative's home.

“All the older teens came in with their trucks, saying that the faggot is down at the gas station using the phone. And they were all going to go beat the f—k out of the faggot," Eastman said. "That was the first time I felt true terror and fear about being who I was.”

Eastman said at 20 he followed his sister to California.

Soon after, she took him to a Pride Festival in San Francisco.

Eastman said he was amazed by the sea of people who not only accepted him for who he was but celebrated it.

“It was the first time I was able to go into a public space and feel completely safe and it changed my life,” Eastman said.

In 2018, Eastman returned to Colon to take care of his parents.

Eastman said he still encountered ignorant beliefs about the LGBTQ+ community.

“All the information that they're getting is from the TV, these pundits that are just trying to get people to sway this way or that way for votes and not really actually learning about these things,” Eastman said.

Still, Eastman said he could tell things had improved in the village.

A blue school bus sits on the road on a bright and sunny day. The bus displays multiple colorful pride flags, along with one black and white Black Lives Matter flag. Rainbow flags hang on both sides of the bus, with red blue and silver streamers draped over them. Similarly colored stars decorated the sides of the bus, with "Love Bus", the bus' name, and Community Equity Resource also displayed the side of the bus. — The Love Bus was not without its detractors during Colon's Fourth of July Parade, with a few boos coming from the crowd, but Eastman said his group still succeeded in their goal of bringing a bit of San Francisco's Castro Street to downtown Colon.

In 2021 he helped create a float for Colon’s Fourth of July Parade: a blue school bus draped with flags including those celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, with “Love Bus” written on the side.

The Love Bus won second place for most creative float.

For Eastman and the others who took part, it was a major accomplishment.

“We cried. Because we thought we would never see something like this, we were always scared that we will be hurt for doing something like that,” Eastman said.

Since then they have not missed a single Colon Fourth of July Parade, but Eastman didn’t stop there.

He also joined Sturgis Pride in 2022 to help revive it after it disbanded a few years prior.

This year in St. Joseph County, Three Rivers held its first Pride Festival.

Fox 17 reported on the preparations, stating that organizers estimated 1500 people would attend the event.

The Three Rivers Pride festival surpassed that estimate, drawing about 4000 people. That’s in a city of about 8,000.

Three Rivers Pride President Andrew George said the success of the event and others like it shows that things have changed in rural areas.

“I don't think it's a political issue anymore," George said. "And I think that's why we ended up having such a smooth running first year, is because maybe in our minds, we still think it's very divisive, but it's not.”

This year Buchanan in Berrien County held its first Pride festival as well, and last month the Dowagiac City Council unanimously approved the first Cass County PrideFest, to be held in the city in June.

Outcenter Southwest Michigan is behind the Pride festival.

Program Director Gerik Nasstrom said with every successful event, the road for acceptance of Pride events becomes smoother.

“The more positive examples you can cite, the harder and harder it becomes for someone to argue against it,” Nasstrom said.

Back in Colon, Colin Eastman said he still sees room for things to improve in his community, but he said the change it has seen is worth celebrating.

“Acceptance and tolerance does not happen overnight. And that's one thing that we sabotage ourselves with, is we think it's going to happen right away. Be patient, things will always get better,” Eastman said.

Eastman said the goal of these Pride events and his advocacy is not necessarily to make every single person an ally, but rather to make his community a place where he and other LGBTQ+ residents can live without fear.

Michael Symonds reports for WMUK through the Report for America national service program.