It was a hot, sunny day at Camp Greene Park. Rainbow flags waved above rows of vendor tents. Across the field, adults danced and cheered as drag performers took the stage, while others fanned themselves against the heat.
The weather hadn’t stopped families, couples and friends from coming out to the annual festival put on by Charlotte Black Pride.
Marcus Smith of Washington, D.C., browsed the vendor tables.
“I love the community. It’s like a lot of people here,” Smith said. “They’re so friendly. They come up to you. You just feel the love.”
The festival is the flagship event for Charlotte Black Pride, founded in 2005 as a sister group to the larger Charlotte Pride organization.
Every July, Charlotte Black Pride mounts the weeklong celebration with parties, performances and community events.
But behind the celebration, organizers say they are facing a growing challenge: finding enough money to keep the weeklong event going.
At a town hall earlier in the week, chair Miles Perry said multiple corporate sponsors had been pulling back support.
“We have had to pivot from most of our funding being from those corporations to a lot of our funding being by the people,” Perry said.
That drop in funding came as the Trump administration intensified its campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Soon after taking office, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to eliminate DEI initiatives within the government and review federal contracts and grants connected to DEI-related work.
While Charlotte Black Pride did not receive federal money directly, Perry said many of the organizations that funded it did.
“A lot of the organizations that fund us are funded through the federal government,” Perry said.
This year, five sponsors dropped or reduced support, according to internal documents shared with WFAE. That included local health care organizations such as Amity Medical Group and RAO Community Health, and financial institutions such as Truliant Federal Credit Union.
One returning health care sponsor, ViiV Healthcare, reduced its contribution from $6,000 last year to $2,000 this year. Several sponsors listed in the previous year’s records did not appear on this year’s list.
Charlotte Black Pride said it sought more than $11,000 in replacement support through new grants, sponsors and vendors.
Treasurer Gelisa Stitt said the group’s records showed how much corporate support could fluctuate from year to year.
“They may have been able to give $10,000 last year, or $5,000 last year, and this year, $2,000,” Stitt said.
Older financial records also show that Charlotte Black Pride previously received support from major companies, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Food Lion.
Sherman Jones was one of the board members helping to piece that funding together.
“We’ve had to get creative with the grants that we apply for, with the potential companies that we ask to partner with us or ask to donate,” Jones said. “We’ve had to get creative with the emails that we send to ask people in the community to donate to our funds, and how we have to price tickets to certain events.”
The funding squeeze extended beyond Charlotte Black Pride.
In the back of a north Charlotte dance studio, a panel of speakers took questions as part of the Charlotte Black Pride town hall event.
Quanna MC is the founder of Carefree Black Girl, which organizes community cookouts in Charlotte and other cities.
“Before, different brands would hit us up and they’d be like, ‘Hey girl, here’s $2,000, here’s $3,000,’” Quanna said. “It’s not the same because they don’t have that funding. Even Charlotte. I was trying to do a park this year, but the park was like $4,000. And I was like, ‘Dang, I gotta go to a facility.’”
She said people now helped however they could, sometimes with money and sometimes with supplies.
“I still have people every week like, ‘Hey, what you need? I’ll get you some water,” Quanna said. “So it’s really that community aspect of it. That’s the only reason I’ve been able to sustain, to be honest.”
Jones said board members like him were helping sustain Charlotte Black Pride in much the same way.
“You’ll see me setting up tables. You’ll see me moving chairs. You’ll see me hooking up microphone equipment, setting up tents, making the merch tables, giving people shirts, giving people fans,” Jones said. “Just whatever needs to be done to keep this ship moving forward.”
Organizers said that if corporate support continued to decline, they would need more support from the community — and perhaps that could free them from conditions tied to corporate sponsorships.
For now, one thing is certain: Charlotte Black Pride Week will continue, even if the path forward looks different.
