The one thing we know for sure about this year’s Pride celebration is that the weather was not kind to it.
There is no question that the thunder and lightning and torrential downpour of early Saturday morning did not augur well for the 2025 parade and festival, scheduled for later that day.
That was one cruel joke played by the elements. A second cruel joke was the rapid and virtually complete clearing of the skies by late morning, by which time, however, the day’s events had been canceled.
A statement from Mid-South Pride, the sponsoring organization, announcing the cancellation, put things this way: “In the hours leading up to the event, we were in continuous contact with emergency management officials and other city departments. … Combined with 50 mph wind gusts, flooding, and unstable conditions for temporary staging and infrastructure, the decision was no longer ours to make — it became a public safety directive.”
The statement attempted to be reassuring, promising that “the celebration will be rescheduled.” Late Monday evening, a press release announced the event would now take place June 21st.
And in the meantime, another kind of foul weather — the metaphorical kind, represented by gossip and social media — had rained on the parade, which has become an annual fixture of the Memphis timeline.
Word was getting around that the office of Mayor Paul Young was to blame for having called things off.
Renee Parker Sekander, the office’s liaison for the event, put out her own statement, which said in part: “Today, I had to make the tough decision to halt our participation in today’s Pride Parade for those city employees who chose to participate.” The weather forecast, she said, had posed “a serious safety risk to our staff, our residents, and our mayor —who was genuinely excited to march alongside our community.” She maintained that “the city did not cancel Pride. The mayor did not cancel Pride.”
A thought: The administration of Mayor Paul Young seems intent on acquiring an evermore self-scapegoating status.
And on that point, Young is becoming a magnet for intensifying community concerns regarding the xAI project.
The mayor is very much in the crosshairs of a significant environmental protest led by the irrepressible state Senator Justin J. Pearson, who held a press conference on the subject of xAI on Monday in conjunction with various NAACP chapters in Tennessee and Mississippi.
Pearson et al want local political leaders, including both Young and his county mayor counterpart Lee Harris, to join with the Environmental Protection Agency in blocking xAI’s current and future applications to operate methane gas turbines at the Shelby County industrial sites where it is now operating.
Harris’ position toward the xAI project, brought here by mega-entrepreneur Elon Musk, might best be described as cautiously ambivalent, whereas Young has declared forthrightly his hope of “exploiting” Musk’s Colossus project in the interests of Memphis’ tax base and the area’s economic future.
Pearson’s response to that has been that “the paltry money xAI has dangled in front of our short-sighted leaders is not worth the cost of breathing dirty, and in some cases, deadly air.”
As for Young’s goal of “exploiting” xAI for Memphis’ benefit, Pearson regards the idea as “ignorant,” suggesting instead that “you can’t exploit the exploiter” and that “Mayor Young should know better.”