Newburgh raises Philadelphia Pride Flag for June in inclusion show of support

A Philadelphia Pride Flag went up at Newburgh’s Broadway and Colden Street flagpole and will stay there throughout June, giving downtown a visible Pride Month marker at one of the city’s most familiar corners. The city posted the notice on June 1, and the display is meant to recognize the role LGBTQ+ Americans have played in Newburgh’s history and in the nation’s larger civic life.

The choice of flag is more specific than a standard rainbow banner. The Philadelphia Pride Flag, unveiled in Philadelphia on June 8, 2017 as part of the city’s “More Color, More Pride” campaign, adds black and brown stripes to the original six-stripe design. Those stripes were added to better represent Black and Brown LGBTQ people, including queer and trans people of color, a nod to inclusion that gives the Newburgh display a sharper message than a generic show of support.

That message will sit in public view through the end of June. For residents, workers, and customers passing Broadway, the flag turns a routine downtown intersection into a civic signal about who the city says belongs in public space. It also places Newburgh inside a larger municipal pattern, where local governments use Pride Month observances to make inclusion visible rather than symbolic alone.

Newburgh has done that before. The city marked Pride Month with a similar notice in 2025, and Safe Harbors on the Hudson hosted Pride on the Green on June 23, 2024 at Safe Harbors Green, 111 Broadway. That event featured a sidewalk procession, live performances, a drag story hour, a dance party, and an after party, showing that Pride in Newburgh has already extended beyond a single flagpole and into downtown programming.

The city’s 2026 display also lines up with state action. Governor Kathy Hochul declared June 2026 LGBTQ+ Pride Month in New York and directed state office buildings and landmarks to raise Pride flags on June 1. In Newburgh, the flag at Broadway and Colden Street fits that broader state observance while keeping the focus on a local streetscape that many residents use every day.

The original rainbow Pride Flag dates to 1978, when Gilbert Baker created it. Nearly five decades later, Newburgh’s choice of the Philadelphia version signals that the city’s Pride observance is not just about celebration, but about representation, history, and whose presence is being acknowledged in the center of town.