As Baltimore Pride kicks off, organizers seek to build community, draw crowds

When Lamar Brooks was growing up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he yearned to see Black people who looked like him. Brooks, who is gay, hopes this year’s Baltimore Pride offers everything he sought as a young person. “Growing up, it was difficult as a gay Black man to navigate through my intersections because I didn’t have the visual representation of what it was like growing up from where I’m from,” Brooks said.