Shannon Nix was in his early 30s before he officially came out as a gay man to his family.
“To be fair, I think many of them already knew, but it wasn’t until then that I was actually open and vocal about who I was and unapologetic about it,” Nix said.
Now Nix is channeling that energy into the Batesville Pride Festival in hopes of encouraging acceptance for the younger generation.
The festival is scheduled from 4-8 p.m. Saturday at Pocket Park in Batesville. There will be a live DJ and other live music performances, as well as poetry readings, presentations and speakers.
Nix said more than 59 vendors will offer everything from face-painting and food items for sale to a big bouncy house for kids. He said a wide variety of businesses and arts-and-craft items will be available, and five churches will have tables set up as well.
The festival began in 2019, following a rise of attempted suicides by teenagers who identified on the LGTBQ spectrum.
“By talking to some of the survivors and their families, [I learned that] these kids felt alone and bullied and didn’t feel like they had support in this area,” Nix said. “I’m almost 47 years old, and I remember growing up feeling that way — that’s just the way it was, but it’s not that way anymore.”
Nix was hesitant in organizing the event for its inaugural year.
“It took me a long time to build up the courage to do it,” he said. “Whenever I finally processed through that, I got to work, [along with] some others, and in three weeks, we put the event together.”
Nix said he has had the opportunity to talk to several young people in the community, as well as Gay-Straight Alliance students at area schools, in hopes of sharing his testimony and encouraging others to be comfortable with themselves.
“I have helped run equality ordinances around the state to create safe spaces where we all can feel comfortable being ourselves,” he said. “For some people, it is a given luxury that we have every day, but for others, there are only certain places they feel safe being themselves.”
The Pride event had to be canceled in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but in its first year, he said, more than 1,000 people attended.
“It was more than I ever expected,” Nix said. “I was really nervous because there is so much fear in a state like
Arkansas, and religious backlash. I was hoping for a couple hundred people to show up, and we had around 1,000.
“I’ve never been more proud of this area for its response.”
He said there was some protesting that day, but it was minimal. He said staff members of one particular business on Main Street openly protested outside the business for about an hour, and “they aren’t happy we are doing it again.”
“Some of the fear surrounding the event in 2019 was due to the fact that we didn’t know what the response in the community was going to be like,” Nix said. “This year, we have vendors attending from as far as Houston and Fort Worth, Texas.”
Nix said he grew up right outside Batesville, and since becoming an adult, he has become very involved in the community, serving on the Independence County Library Foundation Board and the Main Street Batesville Board.
“Batesville has been more of an open-minded and progressive community, but sometimes, we all need a little help in expressing who we are,” he said.
Nix said the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, will be a presenting sponsor this year. Holly Dixon, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, is a Batesville native and is expected to attend the event.
“Batesville Pride’s theme this year is a celebration of diversity, and it is heartening to see people recognizing the importance of intersectionality and the reality that none of us are free unless everyone is free,” Dixon said. “It is so important that Arkansans come together to celebrate our survival in incredibly difficult times — especially after a deadly pandemic and a state legislative session that saw attacks on all of our civil rights and civil liberties.
“Arkansas politicians this year took aim at voting rights, free speech, reproductive freedom and racial justice — all while engaging in a reprehensible assault on LGBTQ people and trans lives. Batesville Pride will be a great coming together to celebrate our resilience, the diversity that makes us strong, and to recognize the value of joy in this long march together toward justice.”
“Our theme for this year is ‘Celebration of Our Diversity,’” Nix said. “Without celebrating our diversity and who we are as people, and accepting one another, places don’t grow the way they should, and it becomes stagnant for individual and economical growth.
“We have seen many places in Arkansas that sometimes have close-minded leadership and see their young people leave and never come back. We want young people to realize that Batesville is a place they can come home to because there is always something here for them.”
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.