Unlike the Annual Reminders, the march would have no dress code-and its participants would focus less on politeness than pride. In New York, the event would be called the Christopher Street Liberation Day March in honor of the Stonewall Inn’s Greenwich Village location. They resolved to hold a march in New York each year in June to commemorate the Stonewall uprising, and encouraged other groups around the country to gather on the same day. At an ERCHO conference in late 1969, he proposed that the Philadelphia demonstrations morph into something new to “be more relevant, reach a greater number of people, and encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle in which we are engaged-that of our fundamental human rights.”ĮRCHO agreed. Here's what it is.)Ĭraig Rodwell, an activist who had helped organize the Annual Reminders, was one of the participants in the Stonewall riots. ( Early LGBTQ activists used a boisterous protest tactic called zapping. Fed-up activists fueled their frustration into organization, sparking new groups, and planning larger-scale demonstrations. Suddenly, the gay liberation movement that had been percolating boiled over.
Fearing violence, organizers enacted a strict professional dress code and encouraged marching in an orderly picket line to put a non-threatening face forward.īut on June 28, 1969, the Stonewall uprising sent shock waves through heterosexual society, and galvanized LGBTQ people. The events, which they called the Annual Reminders, focused on obtaining basic citizenship rights and were subdued by design. In 1965, for example, members of the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) began picketing each year on July 4 outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall.
( How the Stonewall uprising ignited the modern LGBTQ rights movement.) Stonewall sparks a movementĭespite the rampant homophobia of the early 20th century, the LGBTQ community had made itself visible before. cities in 1970 were raucous celebrations of identity-and a provocative peek at the decades of activism to follow. Now known as the first Pride parades, the gay liberation marches that took place in New York and other U.S. In Stonewall’s wake, thousands of LGBTQ people took to the street to demand their civil rights. “Coming out” came with threats of violence and social ostracism.īut that changed in the aftermath of the 1969 Stonewall uprising-when a group of LGBTQ people rioted in response to a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. For centuries, homosexuality had been stigmatized, criminalized, and persecuted. Their skepticism was for good reason: Until 1969, the thought of a large group of LGBTQ people celebrating their sexual orientation in public was unthinkable. “The idea … made them laugh wildly,” recalled D’Emilio during an oral history collected by OutHistory. Members of the gay community faced a serious threat of being jailed, blackmailed, institutionalized, killed, or even lobotomized for what was then labeled as a sexual perversion and/or mental disorder.When John D’Emilio heard a group of LGBTQ activists would be marching in the streets of New York in June 1970, he told his boyfriend and several of his gay friends. Anger and frustration had built across the decades as members of the community often found themselves being singled out by systemic hatred and oppression. Raids of this kind were common at Stonewall, but uncommonly, on this night, the club goers fought back.
On June 28, 1969, a club in Manhattan called the Stonewall Inn was raided by police. However, the Pride parade was not always a celebration. Marriage equality was afforded only two years ago, and discrimination persists, but these parades exemplify the ability to overcoming struggle and heartache, and choosing to strive toward living as boldly as the colors on the rainbow flag. The parade in itself is an acknowledgement of the struggles faced throughout history by members of the community, and the issues they continue to face.
Pride parades are famous for bright colors, daring outfits, and for uplifting the LGBTQ community (and glitter - lots and lots of glitter).