Minneapolis, MN – On Wednesday, June 10, Twin Cities activists of the Taking Back Pride Coalition (TBP) gathered at Strive Bookstore in downtown Minneapolis to hold a press conference demanding corporate sponsors like Delta, 3M and US Bank get out of Twin Cities Pride.

Now entering its tenth year, TBP organizes a protest march against the presence of police and corporations at the state’s largest free Pride festival, and calls for a return to the explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-police politics of the Stonewall Uprising.

Attendees held signs reading “No capitalism, no cops, no corporations at Pride!” and “No Pride in ICE collaboration! Dump Delta,” highlighting the unethical practices of many of the corporate sponsors of TC Pride. Many of these corporations are guilty of pinkwashing issues like genocide and climate change, and even directly fund Republicans who attack LGBTQ rights.

“We believe that Pride is strictly political, and that superficial representation from companies that slap a rainbow on once a year while they fund politicians stripping us of our rights is not something to be proud of,” explained Jae Yates, member of Twin Cities Coalition for Justice and Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Although TC Pride ousting Target as a sponsor of last year’s festival was seen as a win by many, TBP organizers pointed out that the issue is not about a single corporation, and that companies donating to Pride does not erase the negative impact they have on communities at home and abroad throughout the rest of the year.

“We have to ask how much money is enough to undo the harm that companies have caused?” asked Steff Yorek of the Climate Justice Committee, who argued that companies like 3M have no place at Pride. Yorek pointed out that 3M has knowingly hidden the threat of “forever chemicals” released into Minnesota waterways, and its political PAC has funded politicians who voted against the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Area mining ban. “3M funds these politicians that are a threat to both our environment and to our safety as queer people with their homophobic and transphobic platforms.”

The largest TC Pride donors this year include companies like Delta, which was among the GOP’s biggest contributors in 2024 and a million-dollar donor to the Trump Inaugural Fund. The airline’s ties to ICE operations were also made clearer to Minnesotans through Operation Metro Surge just this past winter, as Delta completed hundreds of flights transporting detained neighbors out of the state to be placed in detention centers.

Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) member Aizar Cabrera highlighted these connections between the struggle for LGBT and immigrant rights, stating, “Our rights to education, healthcare, and to simply exist are being threatened” by companies like Delta, that are “making money by helping to separate families.”

Nick Benson of Minnesota 50501 added “They were flying children and families including Liam…down to San Antonio where they would be put into the concentration camps at the Dilly Family Detention Center,” Benson said, referring to Liam Conejo Ramos of Columbia Heights who was detained by ICE along with his father and sent to a detention center in late January of this year.

Speakers also called out sponsors complicit in war and genocide such as US Bank, whose ties to the fossil fuel industry highlight its connection to the U.S. attacks on Venezuelan sovereignty and the war on Iran, which has passed its 100th day mark this past Sunday.

“When your ‘customers’ facilitate war crimes with their fighter jets, missile systems, tanks and naval vessels, then you need to be called out for who you do business with. Decorating your bank with rainbows can’t clean up the blood on US Bank’s hands,” said Meredith Aby, director of Women Against Military Madness.

Anti-War Committee member Maeve Aickin pointed out that Waymo, as a subsidiary of Google’s holding company Alphabet, has connections to the genocide in Gaza, as “at least two of Israel’s state-owned weapons manufacturers, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, are mandated to use Alphabet products for cloud computing.”

Aickin went on to describe how these ties to war endanger queer lives, as “machines bearing offensively adorable names that Rafael and IAI manufacture don’t discriminate based on sexuality. They are equipped with shrapnel spray systems, but they are not equipped with gaydar.”

Taking Back Pride organizers emphasized that they would continue to protest corporate sponsorship of TC Pride until their demands are met.

“Pride is not about one weekend. It is a time to honor those before us that have risked their lives and come face to face with state violence in the name of Queer Liberation,” said Nadiyah Salawdeh of the US Palestinian Community Network. “It is a time to recommit ourselves to carrying on that legacy. We must disrupt, not make ourselves palatable to shareholders. From the bricks thrown at Stonewall to the rocks thrown in Palestine, our fight is one fight against capitalist, imperial violence.”

Organizers encouraged community members to join them at events throughout the rest of June leading up to their annual protest, where they invite all who can to hit the streets alongside them to demand cops and corporations out of Pride on June 28.

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