by Mel Green | crossposted on Henkimaa

A slideshow of photos from Alaska Pride Fest 2011, held in Anchorage, AK on June 25, 2011.

Just a few minutes after it began, Anchorage’s annual Pride parade on Saturday, June 25, 2011 ended in tragedy with the accidental death of James L. Crump, a registered nurse with the Anchorage Department of Health and Human Services and a loved member of the Anchorage LGBT community. The parade was canceled, but the Pride Festival at Delaney Park Strip still took place.

The slide show below — the “Pride Slide” — includes photos from D Street, which served as staging ground before the parade set out on 6th Avenue; the abbreviated parade itself; and the Pride Festival. James appears in some of the “staging ground” photos, as in the photo to the right, where James, in green, is on the right.

I hope that his family, friends, and coworkers may take comfort in seeing the pleasure and fun he was having. And may all of us continue to remember that spirit of love with which he lived his life, through all the remaining photos — even as we mourn his absence.

My account of this day may be read on Bent Alaska in the post “A mournful Pride.”

This is a lengthy slide show.  Photos can be viewed individually in the set this slide show is based on in my Flickr photostream.

A note on licensing: normally I license all my photos under a Creative Commons license requiring only attribution and noncommercial use. Due to the circumstances, I’ve chosen to reserve all rights on these photos for the time being. This may change later; but in the meantime; please ask permission at bentalaska2@gmail.com, unless I have explicitly already given it to you in writing.