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The Fayetteville square was full when The Citizen arrived around 3:30 p.m. for Fayette Pride, a five-hour celebration of community, individuality, and acceptance held from noon to 5 p.m.
Children moved between face-painting stations, vendors, food trucks, and live performances. Families watched from the lawn. The Atlanta Women’s Chorus sang “Chosen Family,” a song about finding family through love and shared experience rather than blood or surnames.
Across the street, protesters stood with large signs and microphones. A quieter group faced them holding signs that read, “Love is Love.”
Inside the event, however, the focus remained on the people filling the square.
“Fayette Pride is an exciting gathering of our community to celebrate love and individuality and fun and community and togetherness and all the things that make Fayetteville great,” said Jordan Guest-Johnson, a PFLAG board member. “I’m really proud of our town for putting this together, and proud of our committee for putting this together. And it’s just been a really special experience.”
Guest-Johnson has lived in the Fayette area her entire life.
“The music and entertainment has, for me, been an amazing part of this,” she said. “Seeing so many friends and people that I know, and community leaders and officials being here and in full support has been really encouraging.”
“I’m very proud to call Fayetteville home and to call Fayetteville a place that accepts all people,” she added.
Pride closer to home
For many who attended, the importance of Fayette Pride was not simply that a Pride event existed. It was that the event was happening in Fayetteville.
Fayette Pride committee member Chris McCarthy said LGBTQ residents have often felt they needed to travel north to find that kind of community.
“I just thought it was so important that Fayetteville had an opportunity to celebrate the diversity of their community,” McCarthy said. “I think for so long, people thought that they had to be in Atlanta. That Atlanta was a sort of hub of the LGBTQ community, and we always thought that wasn’t the case.”
“If we could give people an opportunity to come together,” he said, “they would show that there was this real need for something like this.”
That need was apparent in the stories of several young adults attending their first Pride event.
Girlfriends Mando, 23, and Sam, 24, were both attending their first Pride.
Mando traveled from McDonough after finishing a shift at work.
“There’s nothing like this where I live, or at the very least, I haven’t seen one just yet,” Mando said. “This is my first ever Pride, so to me, it means a lot of firsts.”
Sam lives in Brooks and said the distance to Atlanta had previously made attending Pride difficult.
“I’ve been wanting to go for some time now, but we just had nothing near us,” Sam said. “I can never go and travel up to Atlanta for a day. I’ve been always working, so it’s just nice to be able to see so many people here.”
Lauryn Oliver, 24, who lives about 15 minutes from Fayetteville, described seeing Pride on the square as a significant moment for the city.
“I feel like this is such a historical moment because I’ve never personally really viewed Fayetteville as an area that’s sort of accepting of this sort of thing,” Oliver said. “So to see Pride here really means a lot.”
“I feel like it’s really a moment in history that turns the page for Fayetteville in a good light and shows that we’re on the right path,” she said. “Despite everything else that’s going on, we’re still making progress.”
Oliver attended her first live drag performance at the event and also visited local vendors and organizations offering counseling and other services.
“I loved the performances, the live music,” she said. “I love to shop local, support small businesses. Just really amazing to see the counseling services and things I didn’t even know were in this area or nearby. So I’ve been able to learn a lot, also see a lot.”
From torn-down signs to a full square
For Nate, 24, seeing the square filled with Pride attendees represented a marked change from his experience as a student at Whitewater High School.
“For me, it means community and a change, like a change in Fayetteville,” Nate said. “Because when I went to high school, we tried to have a Spectrum Club, and all the posters were ripped down.”
“So to be able to see this community actually be safe and able to come together, it’s just huge,” he said.
Nate asked that only his first name be used because his father is a teacher.
“It’s incredible, years later, seeing that this can actually happen, when before we couldn’t even have a little club to meet up,” he said.
Nate came with a large group of friends and spent the afternoon enjoying the music, vendors, and dancing.
“There was a dance party, which was so fun, and then there was also the women’s choir, which was beautiful,” he said. “And then just all the booths, all the vendors, everyone’s been phenomenal.”
Eve, another member of the group, said the crowd gave her a sense of community she had not experienced while growing up.
“It’s like I’m not alone anymore,” Eve said. “So much of my life growing up was just a really small, really secluded group. We didn’t really feel like we belonged anywhere.”
“Being here now, seeing just how many people are in Fayetteville, of all places, is just—it’s so amazing because it’s like movement forward,” she said.
“We can finally be open and finally be in community and not be afraid anymore.”
Children dancing together
The event included drag performances, but the atmosphere bore little resemblance to the adult-oriented images sometimes associated with larger Pride celebrations.
No one observed by The Citizen was dressed inappropriately. Children danced, made crafts, visited booths, and played throughout the square.
Josh Thomas, who traveled from Locust Grove after learning about Fayette Pride through Instagram, described what happened when one of the drag performers invited children to dance.
“When one of the drag queens was performing, the kids were out there dancing and copying some of her moves,” Thomas said. “Then she went out there and had them go around in a circle, and they all held hands and started dancing together.”
“That was beautiful,” he said.
Lydia, a Palmetto business owner who attended with her wife, also rejected the suggestion that the event was inappropriate for families.
“I did not see one inappropriate person dressed,” Lydia said. “They were expressing love, expressing being proud of the community that they are in. I didn’t see anything ugly here.”
Lydia said the event filled a particular need for LGBTQ residents living south of Atlanta.
“We need this on the south side of town because there are a lot of people out here hiding and having to live with people that do not accept them, but we’re still thriving, and we need to know that it’s okay,” she said. “We don’t have to hide.”
Referring to the protesters across the street, Lydia said their message conflicted with her understanding of Christianity.
“We’re supposed to spread love, not hate,” she said. “These people want to come out here and tear people down. That’s not what Jesus wanted at all.”
What a bus driver sees
Vanessa Coates has driven a Fayette County school bus for nearly three decades. She is also the mother of a gay son.
Coates said her work has allowed her to witness what can happen when children are bullied or made to feel ashamed of who they are.
“I’m a Fayette County bus driver, and I see it all the time,” Coates said. “These kids are afraid of being who they are, and it’s great that you guys take the initiative to say, ‘Hey, be who you are. It’s okay.’”
“It’s really amazing to be a part of this,” she said.
Coates is beginning her 28th year as a bus driver.
“I’ve seen so many kids,” she said. “They were fine at the beginning of the year, and then the bullying and the hate and just the crazy turns them into somebody that is very, very sad.”
“Now they’re able to be who they are, and it’s important,” Coates said. “It is really important, and I’m so glad you guys are giving them the opportunity to be who they are.”
Building communities within communities
Organizations at Fayette Pride represented interests ranging from counseling and advocacy to sports and the arts.
Joshua Hill, director of communications and public relations for All Stripes, said many attendees were learning about the organization for the first time.
All Stripes is the LGBTQ supporters group for Atlanta United.
“Our mission is to create a safe space within soccer for the LGBTQ community,” Hill said. “We want to make sure that everybody here knows that we’re here and that they’re welcome, and there is a community for them if they want to come out to enjoy an Atlanta United match.”
“The U.S. Soccer National Training Center has just opened up in Fayette County, so we’re really hoping that that’s creating a lot of energy around soccer down in the Fayetteville community,” he said.
Sean Jenkins, 25, found his community through the Atlanta Freedom Band. He marched with the band’s color guard during Fayette Pride’s opening parade.
“Sixteen-year-old Sean would have never known about Pride,” Jenkins said. “But now that he’s 25, going on 26 next year, this is like the best thing to come to.”
Jenkins said he knew little about Pride before joining the band the previous year.
“All of this, seeing everyone just loving, being fun and happy, it’s just amazing to see,” he said.
When asked whether he had brought his family to the event, Jenkins gestured toward his fellow Atlanta Freedom Band members.
“These are my family,” he said.
Visibility across generations
Michele Ogden, who lives in Atlanta and works at Spelman College, attended to support Fayette Pride and visit family members who live in Fayetteville.
Ogden is bisexual and previously worked with GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
“I think Pride is so important because we are continuously fighting for our rights—back then and right now—and it means so much for me to have this visibility for our community, for future generations,” Ogden said.
She said Pride also gives people the opportunity to continue “connecting with one another for our humanity and for our love as a community.”
“I wanted to come and support Fayetteville Pride,” she said.
As the afternoon moved toward its conclusion, music continued across the square. Friends posed for photographs, children carried crafts and containers of slime, and attendees moved between the booths.
The protesters remained across the street. So did the counterprotesters with their “Love is Love” signs.
But within the square, the stronger answer came from the crowd itself: children dancing hand in hand, young adults attending their first Pride, longtime residents welcoming visible change, and people who had once felt alone discovering just how many others were standing beside them.
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