A crowd of nearly 75 people gathered Sunday afternoon in Lakeview to march from the Belmont Red Line station to the AIDS Garden Chicago in support of abortion rights, gun control and ending racial injustice and oppression.
Drag queen performer and activist Joe Lewis, who goes by the name Jo MaMa, started planning the Chicago Reclaim Pride March in 2020 but said it almost did not happen.
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“Our community kind of came under attack when we founded the Chicago Black Drag Council,” MaMa said. “We had quite a few people make hate videos, I’ve had my property stolen, I’ve been dosed more than once and woke up in a hospital room completely unaware of what happened to me.”
But MaMa said the setbacks are part of the cost and told the crowd that in order to make change, there is a cost.
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“So be ready to pay that cost,” she said.
The march was put on by the Drag March for Change and Pride Without Prejudice.
Tricia Holloway, the trans health manager at Howard Brown Health Center, a nonprofit LGBTQ health care and social services provider, encouraged marchers to continue to show up, rally and attend protests.
“It’s important for us to be represented in so many spaces that we are not seen in,” Holloway said. “There are acts of violence and control that are happening around us every day, and I’m here to say that we will not be controlled, and we will not accept your violence.”
Stephanie Skora, the chief operating officer of Brave Space Alliance, concurred with Holloway’s message.
“We are living, but we are dying, and we are fighting against that death,” Skora said. “For the folks who aren’t used to showing up, or for the folks who only show up in June, I’m going to need you to do a little bit better.”
One of the marchers, Sebastian Summers, said he was happy to come out and help make a statement.
“This is my first drag march and I think this has been amazing, and … in all of the recent gun violence, I think this march has a renewed sense of urgency,” Summers said. “It’s so important what Jo has done here today for Black trans lives, youths and the queer community here in Chicago.”
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Miranda Lung, a longtime friend of Jo MaMa, described the march as impactful.
“I actually drove her home the day she was thinking of this, on our way back from a Black Lives Matter march in 2020,” Lung said. “It’s been so beautiful to see her bringing our community together to celebrate Black power and trans power and the strength of us as we come together.”
At the end of the march, MaMa took out a picnic basket. Inside of it were packets of seeds for marchers to spread throughout the AIDS Garden.
“Let’s see if they bloom next year and we will have flowers to pick and pass off to our next,” MaMa said. “I hope that you can carry that work forward and keep to your promises so we don’t have more failures of the system.”
