Centralia’s Pine Street Plaza was an explosion of color, music and joy on Saturday as the Lewis County LGBTQ+ community and its allies gathered to celebrate Pride Month.
Pride celebrations in the United States began as protests, with the marginalized LGBTQ+ community fighting for equal rights in the wake of the deadly Stonewall Uprising, so Lewis County Pride organizers were disappointed but not surprised when a group of self-identified white supremacists arrived to protest the event.
Many wore masks, but one unmasked protester has been identified as Daniel Rowe, the founder of the neo-nazi group Evergreen Active Club who has been convicted for stabbing an interracial couple in Olympia in 2016.
Videos posted online by festival attendees and the Evergreen Active Club show the protesters, who were primarily white men, holding signs outside the plaza and attempting to argue racist propaganda with festival attendees and security officers.
Their hate-fueled presence on Saturday did little to stop the celebration, however. Festival attendees simply shifted their dancing from within the square to the street, blocking the protester’s signs with their own “Rural Americans Against Racism” signs and rainbow decorations.
While the protesters later attempted to visit businesses in Centralia and Chehalis, where a drag show was held at McFiler’s Chehalis Theater that evening, multiple businesses denied the group entry or service, according to Facebook posts.
“Our visibility, safety and sense of belonging are not up for negotiation. Least of all because of outside self-professed Nazis attempting to storm and disrupt our events,” the Lewis County Dignity Guild, one of the groups that helped organize this year’s Pride festival, stated Sunday in a news release.
“This community was ready as soon as these agitators showed up and we outnumbered their hate with love. We remained happy in the face of their hatred.”
The Dignity Guild also thanked community members who stood with their LGBTQ+ neighbors in the face of adversity on Saturday.
“We hope your cup was filled with the love it deserves and that love nourishes your soul as it did ours to continue the march ahead, laying more foundational bricks so that those who come next might have an easier time,” the Dignity Guild stated.
Lewis County’s third official Pride festival carried the theme “Bee Yourself,” with volunteers sporting glittered bug antennas as they handed out swag and celebrated with attendees.
Drag artists from across the Pacific Northwest performed and many local organizations, including Lewis County PTA + PTO, the Timberland Regional Library, the Centralia Prevention Coalition, Molina Healthcare, Providence-Swedish Health Alliance, St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, Centralia Methodist Church, the Rural Youth Alliance and others, set up booths in the plaza to offer resources and support to attendees.
The festival also featured a new event — a memorial dance titled “Groove is In The Heart” — to honor Rikkey Outumuro, also known as Tru Starlet, a local LGBTQ+ activist and performer who was murdered in October 2021.
While last year’s Pride festival was formally dedicated to Outumuro, the memorial dance is intended to keep Outumuro’s memory alive through future Lewis County Pride festivals, according to event organizers.
The event was organized by a group of 20 to 25 committee members and community volunteers, according to Dignity Guild board member Kyle Wheeler.
“It’s never just a one person effort,” he said Monday.
Unlike previous years, the group made the decision to employ a private company, Pacific Security, to provide security at Saturday’s event.
“They were super instrumental: they were there an hour early so we had coverage while we were setting up and they were there an hour late so we had coverage until everybody was broken down and out of there,” Wheeler said.
Others who were key to the event’s success were ZAP Master Electrology, which allowed event organizers to use their space to help stage the event, and McKenzie McGee of the Centralia Downtown Association.
“Pride is a joyous celebration of our community’s survival despite people attempting to erase us — something we face daily, not just the month of June,” the Lewis County Dignity Guild stated in a news release on Sunday. “We still celebrated yesterday for making it through another year as the manifestation of resilience every queer person has. We still performed, we still danced in the street and we still ate some delicious cupcakes,” the Dignity Guild stated.
