South Carolina Pride Week 2026 was, as always, a celebration of love and freedom. But this year it began with a tribute to the woman who started it all.
Harriet Hancock, known as the Mother of SC Pride, died September 23. It was Hancock who helped organize Columbia’s first Pride Parade in 1989.
“Sleepy little old Columbia didn’t think it had any gay people ’til it saw them in the streets,” Hancock recalled years later. “The march started the conversation.”…