St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery’s Pride Ribbon Project

To honor and recognize LGBT Pride Month, each year the St. Marks Church-In-The-Bowery produces an art installation along 2nd Avenue between 10th and 11th Street, the Pride Ribbon Project. The installation will be up through the end of June, and we highly encourage you to come to see this in person and read through and research some of the people and organizations named on a ribbon.

Loud & Proud: Celebrating LGBTQ Activist Spirit!

The installation notes: As a diverse and inclusive Episcopal Parish, St. Marks Church-In-The-Bowery is committed to expressing God’s love.

During NYC pride Month 2019/WorldPride, and the 50th Anniversary Year of the Stonewall Uprising, we celebrate the spirit of LGBTQ people across all times and places with our Pride Ribbon project.

We use our fence for public witness. Each colored ribbon is inscribed with a name, place, or organization- those in the struggle who have inspired the movement with expressive actions, thoughts, words, and deeds. Through presenting this small sample of leaders, we honor the courage, creativity, energy, spirit, and pride of the entire LGBTQ community.

Red = Activists

One ribbon visible here is Larry Kramer. Through the early 1980s, Kramer was best known for his Academy Award-nominated screenplay “Women in Love” and his controversial novel “Faggots”, about New York City’s gay subculture in 1970s. When AIDS began to spread through the gay community, Larry co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (now known as GMHC) and ACT UP, and wrote the autobiographical “The Normal Heart,” which was eventually made into a movie starring Mark Ruffalo .

Orange = Artists

Paula Gunn Allen was a European-American, Native American, and Arab-American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. She identified with her mother’s people, the Laguna Pueblo. Her career drew from its oral traditions. In addition to her fictional works, she published a major study on the role of women in American Indian traditions that stimulated other scholarly work by feminist and Native American writers.

Yellow = Landmarks and Organizations

The Center (The LGBT Community Center) has been a home and resource hub for the LGBT community in New York City since its founding in 1983. It will likely be designated a NYC landmark by the LPC on June 18, 2019.

Green =  Faith Leaders

The Reverend Al Carmines, Jr. was a key figure in the expansion of Off-Off-Broadway theatre in the 1960s. Carmines was hired by Howard Moody as an assistant minister at Judson Memorial Church to found a theater in the sanctuary with playwright Robert Nichols. His Bible study group grew into the Rauschenbusch Memorial United Church of Christ, with Carmines as pastor.

Blue = Allies

Judy and Dennis Shepard are the parents of Matthew Shepard. Matthew was a 21-year-old student who was murdered in October 1998 in one of the most high-profile LGBT hate-crimes. Following their son’s murder, Judy and Dennis founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation. The Foundation runs LGBT education, outreach, and advocacy programs in Wyoming.

Purple =  In Memorium

Kenneth Binyavanga Wainaina was an award-winning Kenyan author, journalist, and one of Time magazine’s 2014, top-100 “Most Influential People in the World”. He was HIV positive and passed away in May, 2019, following a series of strokes.