This webpage and interview record was created by Lucas Estern in collaboration with the Westchester LGBTQ+ History Project as part of a practicum course called “Queering the Library” taught by Benjamin Zender, PhD (Endeavor Foundation Public Humanities Fellow, Sarah Lawrence College and Yonkers Public Library) during the spring 2025 semester.
Local activist Brian Harris is one of the key organizers of Hastings Friday Night Pride, an annual family-friendly celebration that fills the streets of Hastings-On-Hudson. He does this work as a founding member of Hastings Rainbow Families, a grassroots organization composed of local LGBTQ+ Hastings residents and allies.
He balances his advocacy work with his practice as a music therapist and professor at NYU. He is also a husband and a father.
Alongside other local activists, Harris has grown Friday Night Pride from a small local project to a community fixture since its inception in 2022.
“The kind of intimacy of this kind of activism and really seeing more firsthand the impact that it can have on people is something that I find really meaningful.”
When a recent anti-LGBTQ online campaign aimed at the town’s public school district forced difficult conversations, Brian was among the contingent led by Hastings Rainbow Families that showed up to advocate for maintaining an inclusive curriculum.
In this interview with Lucas Estern at Brian’s home office in Hastings, he discusses queer organizing and living in the suburbs.
To view the full transcript of this interview, click here.
“…To me, you know, the point of liberation is that you get to make choices that feel right for you. That you can have whatever kind of life that you want and that you get to go toward that. So even though on paper, at the moment, my life looks surprisingly heteronormative in some ways, the radical aspect of that is that I get to choose that.”
Brian Harris
The Westchester LGBTQ+ History Project 
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