Protesters affiliated with the group No Justice, No Pride blocked this year’s Capital Pride Parade on three separate occasions, delaying the parade and forcing participants to use an alternative route, in protest of the participation of police officers and certain corporate sponsors.

The No Justice, No Pride group first conducted its own march down the planned parade route with signs like “rainbows don’t cover death merchants” and “no pride in police violence.” They then blocked the route at 15th and P Streets NW. Police formed a barricade around the demonstrators, allowing them to continue the protest, while re-routing the official parade down 16th Street. No arrests have been reported.

“We deserve to celebrate Pride without being forced alongside the police who kill us,” Angela Peoples, one of the participants, said in a release. “Pride should be a haven for the entire LGBTQ community. The Capital Pride Board has shown who it’s prioritizing. No Justice No Pride is for everyone who has previously been excluded and for a different vision of what this event could and should be.”

Jen Deerinwater, another participant and two spirit member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, said: “Capital Pride’s list of sponsors reads like a who’s who of Native genocide: FBI, NSA, CIA, Wells Fargo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Federal Bureau of Prisons.”

The parade was also interrupted a second time by No Justice, No Pride protesters at the float belonging to the defense contractor Lockheed Martin and a third time at the Wells Fargo float (separately, there has been an ongoing campaign in D.C. to get the city government to divest from the bank over its investments in the Dakota Access Pipeline and other business practices).

No Justice, No Pride sponsored a series of alternative events to the mainstream LGBTQ event after unsuccessfully lobbying organizers to reject sponsorship from corporate groups and bar police officers from marching in uniform in the parade.

“If Pride does not provide the space to be affirmed, I’m going to put my energy towards creating that space,” Lourdes Ashley Hunter, executive director of Trans Women of Color Collective, told DCist last month. “The average age of a black trans person is 35 and I’m 41, so I don’t have time not to create spaces for joy.”

The group also uncovered controversial writings from an executive producer of Capital Pride, leading to his resignation.

A number of number of parade participants have reacted angrily to the disruptions, chanting “shame” and getting into verbal confrontations with the protesters.

This post had been updated.

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