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Mourning is a theme of this year’s parade, but it is not a new one for the event.

“I’m thinking of all of the friends I lost in the ’80s,” said John Burris, 74, as he watched the march.

“I lost 75 friends to AIDS. The hospitals wouldn’t touch them. They left the food out in the hallways. The nurses wouldn’t come in. Doctors were covered from head to toe like they were on the moon. We had to change the sheets. After they died, we had to decide what to do with the bodies. We’d call the parents, and some of them just hung up on us. I put their ashes in the Hudson River and the Grand Canyon. I’d dump the ashes and they’d go in the air,” he paused, rubbing his hands together, catching his breath.

Mr. Burris’s partner died 12 years ago; he said he would not have believed the changes that would come to pass over the past decades. “We had no idea the beauty that would be here today,” he said.

Mr. Burris moved to New York from Phoenix in 1969 and said he took part in the events at Stonewall Inn. He said he had attended between 25 and 30 pride parades since then, and was overwhelmed by the support of the New York Police Department this year. “The protection they’re providing, they’re out here in the crowd,” he said. “It gives me chills.”

A police vehicle passed with the department’s initials painted in many colors, followed by a fire truck with someone hanging off the side door, sequins blazing.

“It happened because of Orlando,” Mr. Burris said. “I’m floored. It’s amazing. It’s really amazing. Good things come out of bad things.”