This year brings its own unique societal challenges, which is why I’m presenting a different kind of Pride Month Kick-Off Party. It'll be the same joy-inducing vibe wrapped in a little different package.

As always, it’s important to create affirming spaces for our LGBTQ community, but this year I also want to emphasize solidarity across marginalized communities and reject the forces trying to divide us.

To explore that idea, I’m looking back to the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, which marked 200 years of the United States and came in the wake of the ousting of an unethical president. It was an attempt to restore national unity through patriotism. Less often discussed are the counter-events organized by disenfranchised communities, including LGBTQ activists, who used the moment to speak out against exclusion from the American dream.

At this June edition of Flame, we’ll gather on the dance floor in that same rebellious spirit, finding inspiration in those who spoke out in 1976 while channeling that energy toward confronting today’s inequities. Most importantly, we’ll celebrate solidarity through music, dancing to records released or recorded in 1976.

Expect rarities, familiar favorites, and/or guilty pleasures from Queen, Betty Wright, ABBA, The Spinners, Millie Jackson, Peter Frampton, Stevie Wonder, Rose Royce, and more.

Dress in threads that invoke the spirit of the event (however you choose to interpret it.)