NAOMIE PIETER
Flying the flag
Activist Naomie Pieter on the birth of Black Pride NL, and seeking to drive positive change in the Caribbean
Words Yas Necati
Photography Henri Verhoef
PRIDE ICON AWARD SUPPORTED BY MAGNUM
B lack Pride Netherlands grew out of protest and partying, Naomie Pieter, one of its founders, tells me as we chat on the phone early one weekday morning. Pieter is on the way to another interview promoting the event, and had a late interview the night before.
The first Black Pride Netherlands took place in 2020, but Pieter had been involved in activism for years before that. “I’m Black and queer. I exist, we exist,” she says, before adding, “I don’t know if you’re the kind of person I need to say this to.”
In 2018, they co-founded a group called Black Queer and Trans Resistance, in response to a local Black queer man being beaten up. The collective began to organise anti-violence marches and demonstrations, but Pieter found herself asking: ‘What comes next?’