RALEIGH, N.C. — Organizers with the LGBT Center of Raleigh say more than 15,000 people attended their annual Out! Raleigh festival on Fayetteville St. on Saturday.
It’s its third year, the annual event has grown by more than double since its first event in 2011, when 6,000 people attended.
LGBT Center of Raleigh Executive Director James Miller told The News & Observer that his group’s event was organized to be “more low-key” than other Pride events and to focus more on families.
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Ashley Broadway told a downtown crowd at Saturday’s Out! Raleigh festival that she thinks LGBT families will one day be treated like everyone else.
“I feel in my soul that in just a few years, we will not be discriminated against – that we will have all the rights of our heterosexual friends nationwide and in North Carolina,” she said. “But, again, we can’t just sit back and wait for something to happen.”
Broadway’s remarks kicked off the third annual lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender street festival, sponsored in part by the LGBT Center of Raleigh. Despite a chilly start, organizers expected more than 15,000 people by the end of the day.