A thousand people crowded Decatur’s Madison Street Plaza in late June for the town’s first Pride festival, defying weeks of opposition, online threats, and efforts to cancel the event. For organizers, it was a powerful show of support in a place where some feared they were alone.
But the success of the event was far from guaranteed.
A month earlier, Nikki Ausland and the board of the newly formed Decatur Pride nonprofit walked into a city council meeting. The room was packed — not just with neighbors, but with people from outside the northeast Indiana town of 10,000, many eager to speak out against the festival…