Boston Pride revs up with tribute to Moving Violations icon

By noon on June 7 Faneuil Hall Marketplace was swarming with the usual summer crowd of tourists and shoppers; at first glance the Pride Day at Faneuil Hall stage seemed to blend in to the landscape along with the street performers, balloon animal sculptors, and merchants hawking their wares. But all eyes turned to the Pride stage when Pride Committee Vice President Keri Aulita took to the mic and ushered in a cadre of leather clad lesbians on motorcycles (and their allies), who rode through the marketplace revving their engines. They pulled to a stop at the foot of the stage.

"How hot are they?" shouted Aulita, and with the sun beating down on their metal bikes and leather jackets in the blistering 90 degree heat, it was a fair question.

The riders, drawn from the ranks of the Moving Violations Motorcycle Club and East Coast Biker Chicks, gathered to pay tribute to one of their own, Woody Woodward, one of the founders of Moving Violations. Most Bostonians know Woodward as the woman who turns heads each year as she leads the Moving Violations contingent at the front of the parade sporting a rainbow Mohawk, but the Boston Pride Committee, Woodward's fellow riders, and Mayor Thomas Menino's office honored Woodward for her years of work on behalf of charities focused on breast cancer, HIV/AIDS, and other causes, as well as her years as a volunteer at Boston Pride. Menino signed a proclamation declaring the day "Woody Woodward Day" in the city of Boston.

"Woody has passionately merged her love of motorcycling with her passion for giving back," said Aulita.

Loocie Brown, president of Moving Violations, told the crowd that the club organized the tribute as a surprise to Woodward, inviting her family down to Faneuil Hall to cheer her on and covertly gathering the group of riders who rode onto the marketplace.

Brown described riding with Woodward for several years when Woodward served as one of the key organizers for the Pony Express Relay, a series of four fundraising rides held between 1996 and 2003 and orchestrated by the Women's Motorcyclist Foundation to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Brown described being awakened on each morning of the ride at 4:30 a.m. by Woodward's cry of, "I'm alive, I'm awake, and I feel great!" Others in the audience at Faneuil Hall shouted the chant in unison with Brown, suggesting that it served as the regular wake-up call for many of Woodward's fellow riders.

Aulita told the crowd, "Her work with these charity motorcycle groups has led to millions of dollars being raised for breast cancer research."

She also said Woodward was a fixture as a volunteer at the AIDS Walk.

"We have all seen Woody up before the birds directing traffic at the AIDS Walk," said Aulita.

Following the tribute Woodward took the mic and called on the crowd to do their own part for the community.

"Unless you participate it will not happen, and we all need to show up and do our part," said Woodward.

After the motorcycles revved their engines one last time and rode off the marketplace the entertainment portion of the afternoon began in earnest. The afternoon's emcee, Judah Dorrington, wowed the crowd with a rendition of Alicia Keys' "No One." The rest of the afternoon's entertainment was a mix of Pride standards (folkies - including local guitar strummer Coretta Sellars) and inspired left field choices, such as the Ballet Folkl?rico Monte Alb?n de Veronica Robles, a Latin American dance ensemble. Decked out in long, flowing skirts, which ballooned around them as they twirled in circles, the dancers did a variety of dances from Central and South America, including the Mexican Hat Dance. There was no obvious tie-in between the dancing and the theme of LGBT Pride, but the performance brought together a diverse crowd of both LGBT people who had turned out for Pride and tourists who paused in their shopping excursions to take in the show.