Staten Island Pride Center executive director Carol Bullock and Pride Center board member Alex Carr (second from left) engage with Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade organizer Larry Cummings in 2022.
Donna Aceto
LGBTQ groups will be allowed to participate in the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade for the first time in 2025 after new leadership replaced the longtime organizer who was known for upholding the ban, according to the Staten Island Advance.
The policy change follows years of frustration among community members and LGBTQ groups such as the Pride Center of Staten Island, which routinely showed up every year to register for the annual parade — only to be turned away every time by then-organizer Larry Cummings. Elected officials — including Republicans — and many community leaders spent years calling for a more inclusive policy at the parade and even boycotting it.
Similar bans have been lifted at other parades, like the Manhattan St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which started welcoming LGBTQ marchers in 2014. And other parades, like the St. Pat’s for All parade in the Sunnyside and Woodside neighborhoods of Queens, have maintained inclusive policies for decades.
As years passed, the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade became one of the most glaring holdouts — including earlier this year when queer groups were still barred from participating.
The lingering ban even prompted the Forest Avenue Business Improvement District to organize a separate, inclusive Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade earlier this year. Now, the borough is unifying under one inclusive parade slated for March 2.
The Richmond County St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee’s new leadership ultimately paved the way for the new policy, according to the Staten Island Advance, but it is not clear how exactly the policy changed or what led to Cummings’ departure.
“The Richmond County St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee wishes to announce that the Staten Island Pride Center has been invited to march, under their own banner, in the 2025 Saint Patrick’s Day Parade…This invitation has been extended by new leadership of the parade committee, installed on Oct. 30, 2024,” the committee said in a written statement, according to the Staten Island Advance. “The parade committee is entrusted with ensuring the focus of the parade remains upon Saint Patrick, the history, traditions, culture and faith of the Irish people. In this endeavor, the leadership of The Pride Center has assured the parade committee that they are ready to provide support to the parade in fulfilling this obligation.”
Carol Bullock, the executive director of the Pride Center of Staten Island, routinely showed up to the parade’s registration table every year for what would always end up being an unsuccessful attempt to register her organization for the parade. Bullock praised the committee’s new policy in a post on the organization’s Facebook page Nov. 12.
“We are truly honored to be invited to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” Bullock said. “This event is a time-honored tradition that brings people together from all walks of life to celebrate Irish culture, and we are excited to be part of this vibrant community celebration.”
Bullock previously told Gay City News that she had invited Cummings, the former organizer, to visit the Pride Center of Staten Island, but said he never took her up on the offer.
“At one point, I said, ‘I don’t understand,’” Bullock told Gay City News in 2022. “We are allowed to march in Boston, in Dublin, in New York City — why not Staten Island? What makes Staten Island so different? He just stared at me.”
Mayor Eric Adams also praised the new policy in a written statement on Nov. 12, saying his “administration has been clear that celebrations in our city should be welcoming and inclusive” events.
“We are thrilled that, this year, Staten Island’s LGBTQ+ community will finally be welcome to march under their own banner in the Richmond County St. Patrick’s Day Parade and we applaud the committee for coming to this decision, which was a long-time coming,” Adams said. “Congratulations to the Staten Island community, including the Pride Center of Staten Island and the Lavender and Green Alliance, for their long advocacy for inclusion.”
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