Parade for pride, Black lives powers through rain

In rain boots and with a rainbow pinwheel in hand, Oliver Schindler, 4, looked up in awe at a row of over 40 multicolored balloons fastened to Patrick Devine’s white pickup truck.

About a hundred cars joined in OutSpokane’s Drive for Pride and Black Lives at 12:30 on Saturday. Most cars came decorated with rainbow flags and Black Lives Matter signs.

Steven Herevia, vice president of OutSpokane, directed drivers to the lead car, so they could follow the regular Spokane Pride parade route.

To those who might be getting sick of local protests after several weeks of almost daily events, Herevia has just a few words.

“We’re in a revolution and this won’t stop,” Herevia said. “We can’t stop because Black people keep dying.”

The event was last minute, according to the event’s Facebook page, but community radio station KYRS arranged to play a program to accompany drivers during the event, as the station did for last week’s Vehicle Procession for Black Lives .

Paraders and protesters contended with cold rain as they walked around the parade’s starting point at the Spokane Arena to take in other cars’ decorations.

On one sign taped to a car’s grill, black ink spelling the words “I Can’t Breathe” bled down from the pouring rain.

“We’re already soaked and it’s so, so worth it,” Liz Schindler, Oliver’s mother, said.

Schindler and her son rode under rainbow umbrellas in the bed of their friends’ blue 1950s Chevrolet truck, which also took part in last week’s Black Lives Matter car parade.

Schindler brought a sign she made in 2016 that reads “Hate Won’t Make America Great.” She said she planned to use it once. Instead, over the last few years, she’s carried the same sign at more than 20 protests.

Devine, creator of Spokane Pride, said he was present for Spokane’s first pride event in 1977 and has been at every event since, including leading last year’s parade.

He said joining forces with the Black Lives Matter cause is natural.

“We’re all kind of in the same boat. Their struggle is ours and our struggle is theirs,” Devine, who is white, said. “We were never slaves, but we were shot and hung and killed. So were they. Their rights are not going to matter until all of us stand up, the whole society.”