Kalamazoo’s first Black Pride: ‘A space for us to be ourselves’
NowKalamazoo | James Sanford
Published August 24, 2026
Black Pride organizers say Kalamazoo’s inaugural event isn’t about exclusivity, it’s about comfortability … and joy.
These days, the annual Kalamazoo Pride festival is a two-day extravaganza that attracts crowds upward of 20,000 to Arcadia Festival Site. But back in 2007, Kalamazoo Pride was nothing more than a three-hour party at SmartShop, a long-gone metalworking shop/gallery.
OutFront Kalamazoo Deputy Director Michael Cleggs-Arnott and Dr. Michelle S. Johnson, executive director of the Institute of Public Scholarship, would love to see a similar evolution for Kalamazoo’s first Black Pride celebration. They’re teaming up to launch the event, which is scheduled from 2-8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29.
Black Pride is about inclusion and visibility, said Cleggs-Arnott.
“We have a group here at OutFront Kalamazoo called the Black Queer Trans Alliance for Black queer trans folks,” he said. “And our volunteers were like, ‘We would love to have an event purely geared towards us, mainly to just uplift our community. When we go to other Pride festivals around the country – or even ours locally – you don’t really get a sense sometimes of inclusivity for everyone. A lot of times it’s focused on one specific community: the white community, sometimes.”
That feeling of being excluded isn’t limited to Pride events, Cleggs-Arnott said.
“I’m not saying that other events, like the Juneteenth celebration, aren’t for Black folks, but when you go to even a Juneteenth event, you don’t really see LGBTQ folks being uplifted or being comfortable being themselves there because they know that there might be a specific backlash that comes towards us. So, we really just want to provide a space for us to be ourselves, that also has that safety and that joy.”
Although this is Kalamazoo’s first event, the Black Gay Pride movement began in 1991 with DC Black Pride. It was a way to provide Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer plus (LGBTQ+) people with an alternative to the largely white mainstream LGBTQ+ movement. However, it was also a chance to unite the Black queer community in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis that was affecting Black and brown people at a disproportionate rate.
Tickets are $8 but, like Kalamazoo Pride, there is a pay-what-you-can option for anyone who can’t afford the price. The organizers said everyone is welcome.
“We’re not going to turn folks away,” said Johnson. “We do want people to understand the importance of how to be in a space that is intended to create safety and community for Black and brown people, especially Black people, and understand the importance of this for us.”
Johnson said she had been contemplating a Black Pride festival for at least the past five years, since the COVID-19 shutdowns of 2020. The isolation and quarantine procedures of those days made Johnson realize that “people being out in nature was something that was essential, especially for Black and brown people. My early vision of something like this was to have it be not necessarily in an urban environment.”
Like many realized ambitions, Black Pride has changed somewhat from Johnson’s original concept of a rural get-together. Instead, it will be held in Bates Alley, close to the heart of downtown.
Johnson and Cleggs-Arnott admitted it has not been easy to organize, and getting the support of all the businesses on Bates Alley was a challenge.
“There was some backlash,” Cleggs-Arnott said. “And, because of that backlash, initially this event was denied. We had to send some messages out to the city to let them know some of the things that we went through – and eventually they approved it. But because of that late approval, we’ve been struggling now to get funding and to get sponsors and those types of things.”
Lining up entertainment was also tricky.
“From the very beginning, I wanted to make sure that we had a Black queer band,” Johnson said. “And I couldn’t even find a Black queer musician.” She tapped contacts in Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, even Benton Harbor. “I was really, really reaching,” Johnson said. Then Detroit DJ/hip hop artist Al Wu came on board with some beneficial connections, including Rachel Chop Suey, a Detroit native who is now based in Chicago, where she teaches drumming at School of Rock Andersonville; she’ll lead the Chop House Collective, the house band for the event.
Other performers booked for the afternoon include local educator and hip hop artist Dr. Kandace “DC” Lavender; The Nathan Moore Affair, rapper/hip hop artist Sarge Tha Dame; jazz vocalist Jarod Baker, from Western Michigan University’s Gold Company; Cousin Duke; and DJ Justin Wesley.
Add one more special guest to the mix: “I will also be able to DJ for a minute,” Johnson said with a smile. “Sometimes my passions get lost in the sauce, in the work, and that is my new mission – to have that stop happening to me.” Her stage name is DJ Disobedience.
Johnson said she’s found inspiration for Kalamazoo Black Pride in Detroit’s 30-year-old Hotter Than July celebration and Black Pride events in Chicago.
“I spent time in both of those communities and still continue to feel like Kalamazoo is a hub and a connection between those two places,” Johnson said. “And with our own identity, it’s just a perfect place for us to create something that can endure and speak to the unique experiences we have as Black queer people.”
Original Link: https://nowkalamazoo.org/2026/08/kalamazoos-first-black-pride-a-space-for-us-to-be-ourselves/