More than a million people attended the 44th Pride Parade on Sunday, June 29 and it might have been the largest turnout ever.
The official numbers are not yet in, but Pride publicist Wendy Norris told KTVU that it may have been as many as 1.7 million people.
Among those were some of Silicon Valley's leading tech companies, including Apple, Google, Yahoo, Dropbox, Uber, Twitter, and official grand sponsor Airbnb. Apple had an estimated 5,000 employees marching in white T-shirts with its signature logo and "Pride” across the front. Even NASA had its first official contingent marching in the parade.
Not everyone was thrilled with tech jumping on the Pride bandwagon. Google had its third protest of the week at Sunday's parade when housing activists occupied its float and chanted “Eviction Equals Death.” Airbnb has been accused of adding stress to San Francisco's housing crisis and robbing the city of tax revenue.
At least everyone could agree that it was nice to see Apple CEO Tim Cook waving his rainbow colors.
Housing rights activist have climbed on to #Sfpride #Google float pic.twitter.com/oli8S0ak9g
— Nancy Mancias (@nancymancias) June 29, 2014
Housing die-in happening now on #SFPride parade route pic.twitter.com/sHCYvv4zw0
— Nancy Mancias (@nancymancias) June 29, 2014
[KTVU]
[Huffington Post]
[48hills]