Compton Pride Festival, the city’s 1st, to be held Saturday

Figgy Baby Compton Pride

Latinx rapper Figgy Baby is scheduled to perform Saturday at Compton Pride. Photo: Courtesy Figgy Baby.

COMPTON —Compton’s first LGBTQ Pride festival will take place Saturday at Compton College campus.

The free event will start at noon and end at 8 p.m. Parking is $3.

Zeke Thomas explains what Gay Pride means to him

Compton Pride

Compton Pride is designed to create a safe, accepting celebration for the LGBTQIA community, organizers said. 

Compton Pride is organized and hosted by Star View Teammates Community Services, a non-profit mental health and social services group serving youth and their families.

“Compton is an area often devoid of resources for the LGBTQIA community, and yet it’s an ideal place to highlight and recognize the benefits of diversity,” Tina Binda, administrator of Star View Teammates Community Services, said in a statement.

“Compton is easily underestimated and even marginalized much like the LGBTQIA community, so we wanted to celebrate gay rights as well as the anniversary of the Stonewall riots 50 years ago.”

Performers

The event will feature live performers, entertainment, carnival games, food trucks, a DJ, and 150 resource vendors.

DJ T-LA Storm, Bre-Z from “All-American,” Britt-J from “American Idol,” the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, TV personality-singer James Wright, singer-songwriter Lunalovebad, and Latinx rapper Figgy Baby are some of the performers scheduled to appear.

Speakers include activist Jewel Thais-Williams, who founded Jewel’s Catch One, the first African-American gay disco in Los Angeles.

About the author

Phillip Zonkel

Award-winning journalist Phillip Zonkel spent 17 years at Long Beach's Press-Telegram, where he was the first reporter in the paper's history to have a beat covering the city's vibrant LGBTQ. He also created and ran the popular and innovative LGBTQ news blog, Out in the 562.

He won two awards and received a nomination for his reporting on the local LGBTQ community, including a two-part investigation that exposed anti-gay bullying of local high school students and the school districts' failure to implement state mandated protections for LGBTQ students.

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