The arrival of June each year signals the return of Pride Month, with LGBTQ+ celebrations popping up all across metro Detroit.

But June isn’t the only month that sees action, with the parties extending deep into summer; July and August hold many options as well. Here’s a list of this summer’s Pride happenings in Southeast Michigan.

Saturday, June 1

Ferndale Pride

12:30 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Downtown Ferndale

This beloved-but-relaxed bash will include a children’s area, pet adoptions, drag story time, a children’s area and 2024 musical headliner WRECKNO. Info at ferndalepride.com.

*An after party will be held beginning at 8 p.m. at Ferndale’s The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave.

Pride in the Park

4-8 p.m.

Brandon Township Park, 1414 N. Hadley Rd., Ortonville

Sunday, June 2

Drag bingo brunch

Noon

Whiskey Taco Foxtrot, 28 S. Main St., Clawson

The Pride edition of WTF’s monthly drag bingo brunch is hosted by house diva Aphrodite and features six rounds with unique prizes, plus a specialty brunch menu and cocktails. Call 248-629-7067 to reserve.

Ferndale Pride Queens

11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Bobcat Bonnie’s, 240 W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale

Two seatings, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, feature performances by the MI Drag Brunchettes and Fantasia Royale Gaga from “Dragula” Season 6. Tickets are sold by the table at $45 per person; the cost includes a brunch meal, welcome drink and two-hour performance. Purchase at midragbrunch.com/eastmi.

Thursday, June 6

Pride Trivia

7-9 p.m.

Brown Iron Brewhouse, 30955 Woodward Ave., Royal Oak

Friday, June 7

Ypsi Pride

5-10 p.m.

Depot Town, East Cross Street, Ypsilanti

Drag, burlesque, and theatrical performances are highlights of Ypsi Pride, as well as queer-owned vendors from the region, organizations supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, family-friendly activities, food trucks, and interactive art spaces. 2024 headliners include Alise King, Fearless Amaretto, and Baddie Brooks.

Saturday, June 8

Pride bingo and brunch

10 a.m. – noon

Cambria Hotel, 600 W. Lafayette Blvd., Detroit

Pride Picnic

11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Dodge Park, 40620 Utica Rd., Sterling Heights

Celebration includes food trucks, a DJ, dancing, games, prizes, and a “Best Pride costume” runway show.

Motor City Pride

1-9 p.m.

Hart Plaza, Detroit

Michigan’s largest Pride celebration draws 65,000 visitors annually. Join the movement!

Southgate Pride

3-4 p.m.

Southgate Veterans Memorial Library, 14680 Dix Toledo Rd., Southgate

This one-hour celebration is family-friendly and includes face painting.

Sunday, June 9

Palmer Park Run

8 a.m.

1121 Merrill Plaisance St., Detroit

The fourth annual Palmer Park 8K, 5K, and 1 Mile Run & Walk event is Pride-themed and in support of People for Palmer Park. Sign up at welcomehomeyoga.enmotive.com.

Motor City Pride Parade

Noon

Griswold Street, downtown Detroit

Motor City Pride

12:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Hart Plaza, Detroit

Wednesday, June 12

Family Pride Food Truck Rally

4-9 p.m.

Royal Oak Farmers Market, 316 E. 11 Mile Rd., Royal Oak

Includes live performances, local food trucks and free face painting, balloon art, bounce house, and craft table for kids.

Saturday, June 15

Livonia Pride

11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Civic Center Park, Livonia

Grosse Pointe Pride

Noon – 2 p.m.

Kercheval and St. Clair, Grosse Pointe

This family and pet-friendly event will feature a short march, a drag performance, children’s activities, a selfie station, activism opportunities, and more.

Pride in the Park

Noon – 4 p.m.

Anrook Park, 297 N. Saginaw St., Lapeer

Pride Prom

7 p.m. – midnight

The Crofoot, 1 S. Saginaw St., Pontiac

This 21-and-up event features performances by Katrina Alexis Monae, Emma Sapphire, and Kourtney Charles. Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased at ticketweb.com.

Friday, June 21

Downriver Pride

Noon – 11 p.m.

Downtown Wyandotte

Saturday, June 22

Downriver Pride

Noon – 11 p.m.

Downtown Wyandotte

Forever Pride Action’s Pride in the Park

Noon – 4:30 p.m.

Rochester Municipal Park, 400 6th St., Rochester

Non-Alc Pride Party

8-10 p.m.

The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale

Sunday, June 23

Berkley Pride

1-5 p.m.

Downtown Berkley

Arts & Pride Festival

2 p.m.

Civic Center Park, 300 W. 13 Mile Rd., Madison Heights

This smaller, more sensory-friendly event appeals, in particular, to visitors who are on the spectrum.

Saturday, June 29

Warren Pride Festival and Parade

11:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Warren City Hall, 1 City Sq., Warren

Sunday, June 30

Blue Water Pride Fest

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

McMorran Plaza, Port Huron

Sunday, July 14

South Lyon Pride in the Park

Noon – 4 p.m.

McHattie Park, S. Lafayette St., South Lyon

Thursday, July 18

Family Pride in the Park

6:30 p.m.

Roseville Veterans Memorial Park, 27325 Barkman St., Roseville

Pride in the Wild

6-9 p.m.

Detroit Zoo, 8450 W. 10 Mile Rd., Royal Oak

Friday, July 26

Hotter Than July

Time TBA

Downtown Detroit

LGBT Detroit’s annual, Black LGBTQ+ party returns this year with a packed and varied list of events. Complete schedule still to be announced.

Royal Oak Pride

Time TBA

Downtown Royal Oak

Saturday, July 27

Hotter Than July

Time TBA

Downtown Detroit

Royal Oak Pride

Time TBA

Downtown Royal Oak

Saturday, Aug. 3

Ann Arbor Pride

Noon

Downtown Ann Arbor

Sunday, Aug. 11

Hazel Park Pride

Noon – 7 p.m.

Green Acres Park, 620 W. Woodward Heights Blvd., Hazel Park

Saturday, Aug. 17

Macomb County Pride

Noon – 6 p.m.

Downtown Mt. Clemens

More than a decade ago, Gerald McBride was invited to a University of Michigan men’s hockey game by a client whose son was playing for the opposing team. It was his first time attending a hockey game and it made a lasting impression on him.

“It is completely sold out and I’m the only Black guy in the entire arena,” said McBride, who left the event wanting to know more about the history of Black players in the National Hockey League and wound up inspired to make a movie.

On Friday, “Black Ice: The Rhythm” opens for a weeklong run in metro Detroit at two metro Detroit theaters: Emagine Canton and the Birmingham 8 Powered by Emagine. It also will be screening at Emagine Birch Run near Flint and another Emagine theater in Minneapolis.

Directed and written by McBride, a longtime Detroit radio host and producer of TV and radio advertisements, the film is a contemporary story that also pays tribute to the long, unsung history of Black hockey players — a legacy that goes back to a Black hockey league formed in 1895 in Nova Scotia.

It follows a gifted young amateur hockey player, Robert (Buck) Taylor, who must put aside his dreams of going pro after a fight with a racist white player sends him to prison.  Out on parole, he is tasked with coaching a fledgling youth hockey team at an inner-city Detroit rink that is in danger of being shut down to line the pockets of some local politicians.

“Black Ice: The Rhythm” has a narrative about an underdog team that touches similar emotional chords to “The Mighty Ducks” and “The Karate Kid.” It’s aimed at families and is described as faith-friendly. Winning is one aspect of the team’s quest, but so is making good choices and believing in yourself.

For McBride, who’s celebrating 45 years in radio, the project was more than a new twist to a lengthy career. “It wasn’t about making a bunch of money, but a message that needed to be shared,” he said in a recent phone interview.

The Mumford High graduate had his first brush with radio in 1975 when he represented his school as a Soul Teen Reporter through a program at WJLB-FM (97.9). “Each student would get the opportunity to go to the radio station and report on what was happening at their high school each week,” he recalled. “Once I got a chance to get inside the radio station and then hear myself on the radio, I got bit by the radio bug and have been doing it ever since.”

After attending the Specs Howard broadcasting school (now also covering digital media and graphic design and part of Southfield’s Lawrence Technological University), McBride worked in radio in Rochester, New York, and Flint before joining WMXD about 30 years ago.

He now hosts “Old School House Party” on Saturdays from 7 p.m. to midnight. A segment of the program, “Battle of the Old School,” lets listeners vote on showdowns between music greats, like Luther Vandross vs. the Isley Brothers,  Toni Braxton vs. Anita Baker and, most recently, Michael Jackson vs. Prince. The show is syndicated to about 30 stations across the country, according to McBride.

After that memorable U-M hockey game, McBride started working on an idea for a script involving a Black hockey player. “This story just started coming together,” he said. He kept writing draft after draft, took screenwriting classes and even got positive feedback from some Hollywood producers.

With no financial offers on the table, McBride was done with waiting by early 2022. “I just decided to step out on my own, step out on faith, I should say,” he explained. It was then that he started doing preproduction. Shortly before filming started that spring, he was able to secure an SBA loan for $200,000 and later supplemented that amount with some of his own savings.

In the end, McBride was happy that he had so much control over the final product. “I’m so glad that I took this route, that I had an opportunity to learn every aspect of making the movie, distributing the movie, just wearing so many hats when we’re making a movie with an ultra-low budget film. I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world,” he said.

McBride worked with Productions Plus in Bingham Farms to cast the main actors. For the critical part of Coach Taylor, he chose Arthur Cartwright, an actor and filmmaker who won a prestigious 2018 Gilda Award for emerging artists from Kresge Arts in Detroit.

For the young hockey players, he turned to Detroit Ice Dreams, a nonprofit that promotes and subsidizes ice-related sports, mainly hockey, across the region for youths ages 3 to 17. He credits Cynthia Wardlaw, the vice president and program manager of Detroit Ice Dreams (and a devoted hockey mom herself), for connecting him with teens King Moore, Jovonn Crittenden and Tyler Moore, who filled the key roles of Flash, Mike and Jojo.

’They had been skating since they were 5 or 6 years old with Detroit Ice Dreams,” he said. “What a  blessing that I was able to find all of these jewels right here in the city of Detroit.”

The majority of the hockey scenes were done at the Jack Adams Memorial Arena at the City of Detroit’s Adams Butzel Complex. Certain scenes also were done at Oak Park Ice Arena. McBride says he is grateful to Detroit for allowing the Jack Adams Memorial Arena ice rink to stay open beyond its usual hockey season in order for filming to take place.

In recent years, the NHL has spread the word on Black achievement in hockey through a mobile museum called the Black Hockey History Tour.

And just this April, Tennessee State University got closer to being the first historically Black school to inaugurate an ice hockey program by hiring Duante Abercrombie as its coach. Tennessee State’s plan for the team was announced in 2023 when the NHL draft occurred in Nashville.

McBride hopes “Black Ice: The Rhythm” will reach audiences all over America to let people know about the young Black athletes who are involved with hockey through Detroit Ice Dreams.  

“We’re known as Hockeytown in Detroit, but just 15 minutes from where we have Little Caesars Arena and the Red wings and the Hockeytown restaurants and all of these great things, there is a whole other world of hockey that people don’t know about.”

He believes that once the Emagine showings demonstrate “that we were able to fill some seats here in these four cities, this movie will have legs to go across the country.”

McBride says the lesson of the film applies to his own leap into filmmaking.

“If anybody can walk away with something from the movie, making the right choices in life would be one of the main things. And, of course, the other one is don’t be afraid. Just believe. A lot of times, we’re afraid to step out on our dreams and our ideas.

“But if we’re not afraid,” he added, “we can step out on faith and believe it can happen.”

For tickets and more information on “Black Ice: The Rhythm,” go to its official website at therhythmmovie.com. Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.