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Woonsocket Pride is an annual LGBTQIA+ pride celebration held in the city of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, United States of America. The inaugural Woonsocket Pride was held in 2021.^[1]

In 2020, Rhode Island Pride proposed holding “virtual pride flag raising ceremony” across eight Rhode Island municipalities. This was proposed as a way to ensure that Rhode Island continued to acknowledge and celebrate Pride Month during COVID-19 restrictions in the state. Seven of these municipalities met the request with enthusiasm; the lone outlier was the city of Woonsocket, where city council reportedly stonewalled the effort.^[1] This galvanized some Woonsocket residents, community organizations, and progressive city council member Alex Kithes; bringing them together to organize the city’s first Pride celebration.^[1]

The inaugural Woonsocket Pride celebration was scheduled on June 28, 2021; being an outlier to the event being held on a Saturday. The date was chosen to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.^[2] Organizers requested a permit to hold a small celebration at River Island Park; this request never made the city council docket and was ultimately denied, citing construction in the park-; however, at the time of the planned pride event no construction was occurring in the park.^[3] Undeterred, organizers requested the use of another city-owned space, Market Square. On June 24, 2021, just four days before Woonsocket Pride, Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt announced that a classic car show would be taking place in Market Square an hour and a half before the scheduled pride event. Woonsocket’s Police Department contacted one of the organizations organizing Woonsocket Pride, Rebuild Woonsocket, to inform them that Market Square would be unavailable due to the car show.^[3]

The challenges with obtaining permits, and the mayor’s last-minute announcement of the car show taking place at the same time and location that Woonsocket Pride was planned, turned Woonsocket’s first pride into a protest. At 6:30pm on June 28, 2021, approximately 100 people gathered at River Island Park for a protest march. They marched from River Island Park through Market Square and past City Hall, before ending the march at WWII Veteran’s Memorial Park.^[2][3]

Following the protest march in 2021, city officials expressed hesitancy about granting a permit for the 2022 Woonsocket Pride celebration. Mayor Baldelli-Hunt reported that she had received complaints about “vulgarity and chanting” during the 2021 pride protest. Councilmember James Cournoyer expressed his hesitancy, stating that the previous year’s pride “turned into an attack on the city council, the mayor, etc.” The head of the city’s department of public works opposed the event. However, despite facing some opposition and hesitancy from city officials, the permit to hold Woonsocket’s 2022 pride event was granted.^[4]

Woonsocket Pride has been held annually at WWII Veteran’s Memorial Park since 2022. The event takes place on one Saturday in June, occurring during Pride Month.^[1] The event features live performances– including music, dance, and drag; primarily from local performers. Community organizations are invited to table at the event free of charge; event organizers express that this is because they want the event to be focused on the community– including addressing needs and disparities within the community.^[1]