Blue Jays let their colors fly at Baltimore Pride celebration

Rainbow mortarboards—or graduation caps—made their Baltimore Pride debut this past weekend, joining the perennial favorite, rainbow scrubs, worn by members of the Johns Hopkins community during the Saturday afternoon parade up Charles Street from Madison Street to North Avenue. The parade took place as part of the two-day Pride festival in the city's Mount Vernon neighborhood and Druid Hill Park.

About 200 Johns Hopkins faculty, staff, students, and their families waved flags, carried signs, blew kisses, donned flower crowns and leis, and in one case, captained a recumbent tricycle, complete with a trailing sidecar decked out in Hopkins Pride banners.

The first 125 participants received white Johns Hopkins Pride T-shirts featuring a custom rainbow heart design. Marchers beat the heat (and got a sugar rush) from rainbow popsicles provided at the start of the parade route. During the march, a decorated Blue Jay Shuttle and an ambulance kept pace.

Baltimore Pride dates back to 1975 and has grown to become Maryland's largest LGBTQ and same-gender loving visibility event, attracting more than 30,000 festival-goers. This year's festival theme was "Pride Unleashed."