From the June 1, 2024, edition of CNN's First of All with Victor Blackwell

VICTOR BLACKWELL (HOST): I don't want people to feel like, as we talk about some of the divisions and some of the splits within the LGBT community, that it is just personal prejudices — you mention the health challenges. I wanted to read this I learned from the CDC: According to the CDC — this is 2021 — Black Americans 13 and older were 12% of the U.S. population but accounted for 40% of people with HIV. Black men who have sex with men represented 2% of the population, but 70% of the new HIV cases, and Black women, the new HIV infections that year, 10 times that of white women, four times that of Latinas. Those, again, domestic numbers. That has to shape the programs, the events, that might be different from the larger Pride.



MELISSA SCOTT (ATLANTA BLACK PRIDE WEEKEND ORGANIZER): So, those statistics alone tell you exactly why there needs to be a Black Pride versus a Pride. It's unfortunate, a lot of corporations, they fund Pride, right? And so they feel like ‘we funded Pride,' so when we go in as people of color looking for funding that trickles down to the community, and for outreach, it's like ‘we already funded Pride, so you guys should be good.' No! Look at those numbers.