Photos: Parade, events celebrate Pride in Twin Cities

Scenes at the Twin Cities Pride Parade
Scenes at the Twin Cities Pride Parade along Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis on Sunday.
Nikolas Liepins for MPR News

Twin Cities Pride returned to Minneapolis over the weekend for its 50th anniversary year, drawing thousands of people to the festival, parade and other events.

Pride was canceled in 2020, and held in a scaled-down format in 2021 amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The Pride March — which wasn't held the past two years — was back on Sunday.

Marchers passed crowds lining Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis, following a route that ended at the Pride Festival grounds in Loring Park.

"We have survived AIDS, we've survived COVID, we've survived police brutality and we're still here," Jean Tretter, a founder of Twin Cities Pride, told MPR News ahead of this year's milestone festival. "We have our history, you know, we're preserving it. And we're showing that we're everywhere and that we have an ability of kindness and forgiveness and gentleness that the rest of society needs to learn from us."

Also over the weekend, the second annual "People's Pride" event took place Saturday at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis.

The event — described by organizers as "explicitly non-corporate" — included music, games, vendors and free food.

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