Dayton library honors Pride month with Friday film screening

Lots of visitors coming and going Wednesday, May 22, 2024, at Dayton Metro Library’s main branch. MARSHALL GORBY\STAFF

Credit: Marshall Gorby

Credit: Marshall Gorby

Lots of visitors coming and going Wednesday, May 22, 2024, at Dayton Metro Library’s main branch. MARSHALL GORBY\STAFF

June may almost be over, but that doesn’t mean Pride month events have stopped just yet. From 6:30-9 p.m. Friday at the Dayton Metro Library’s main branch, the annual DML Pride event will take place.

During the event, there will be a special screening of the 2014 film “Pride.” The film tells the true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, a group of UK gay rights activists that joined forces with striking coal miners in 1980s’ Britain.

The film chronicles the challenges the group faced during what would become “the longest and most acrimonious industrial dispute in modern British history,” according to a BBC article. The friendships that came from the coalition also inspired the documentary “Pride in our Valley.”

In the BBC article, secretary of LGSM and character in the film Mike Jackson, said, “it was a mining community for God’s sake and nearly 40 years ago so we didn’t expect them to be the zeitgeist for human sexual understanding but, in fact, it turned out they discussed us long before we went down to stay with them.” The DML Pride event will also include an exclusive filmed interview with Jackson.

“There’s a quote about if you’re in a coalition and you’re comfortable, it’s not a broad enough coalition,” said Jordan Ostrum, LGBTQ+ services specialist at DML. “So I envisioned this with, you know, seeking out folks who are in labor, who are working class, to come and be a part of this celebration of pride.”

The inaugural exhibition at Queer Britain, the first LGBTQ museum in London, on July 22, 2022. One area of the Queer Britain exhibition commemorates the Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners movements from the 1980s; in the black-and-white photograph, bottom left, the actor Ian McKellen marches in a protest. (Alex Ingram/The New York Times)

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Due to the R-rating of the film, this event is adults-only.

This event also coincides with the 55th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a series of LGBTQ+ demonstrations occurring after a New York City gay bar was raided by police.


How to go

What: Dayton Metro Library Pride event

When: 6:30-9 p.m. June 28

Where: Dayton Metro Library Main Library, 215 E. Third St., Dayton

More info: dayton.bibliocommons.com

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