Bernie Delia, attorney, beloved Capital Pride organizer, dies at 64
Bernie Delia, a founding member of the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes most D.C. LGBTQ Pride events, and who served most recently as co-chair of World Pride 2025, which D.C.
will be hosting next June, died unexpectedly on Friday, according to a statement released by Capital Pride Alliance. He was 64. “It is with great sadness that the Capital Pride Alliance mourns the passing of Bernie Delia,” the statement says. “We will always reflect on his life and legacy as a champion, activist, survivor, mentor, friend, leader, and a true inspiration to the LGBTQ+ community.” The statement says that in addition to serving six years as the Capital Pride Alliance board president, Delia served for several years as president of Dignity Washington, the local LGBTQ Catholic organization, where he helped create “an environment for spiritual enrichment during the height of the AIDS epidemic.” “He also had a distinguished legal career, serving as one of the first openly gay appointees at the U.S.
Department of Justice and later as an appellate attorney,” the statement reads. Delia’s LinkedIn page shows that he worked at the U.S.
Department of Justice for 26 years, serving as an assistant U.S. attorney from 2001 to 2019. Prior to that, he served from 1997 to 2001 as associate deputy attorney general and from 1994 to 1997 served as senior counsel to the director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, which provides executive and administrative support for 93 U.S.
