LGBTQ History Month: The road to Ameri's first gay pri march

Contents:

• REMEMBERG THE 1970 CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATN DAY MARCH
• LGBTQ HISTORY MONTH: THE ROAD TO AMERI'S FIRST GAY PRI MARCH
• INSI THE FIRST PRI PARA—A R PROTT FOR GAY LIBERATN
• MARCHER AT THE CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATN DAY MARCH HOLDG A “GAY IS PROUD” SIGN, 1970
• GAY LIBERATN NEW YORK CY, 1969-1973, BY LDSAY BRANSON
• GAY DATG ATHENS
• GAY RIGHTS

REMEMBERG THE 1970 CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATN DAY MARCH

Leonard Fk Photographs, The LGBT Communy Center Natnal History ArchiveMark SegalEarly member of the Gay Liberatn Front and marshal of the first Pri marchThe Christopher Street Gay Liberatn Day March was as revolutnary and chaotic as everythg we did that first year after the Stonewall rts. ” Today, my origal marshal’s badge is on display the JayEarly member of the Gay Liberatn Front and Radilbians and -anizer of the first march New York and Los AngelIt was a near miracle that the first Christopher Street Wt Para Los Angel kicked off at all on June 28, 1970.

LGBTQ HISTORY MONTH: THE ROAD TO AMERI'S FIRST GAY PRI MARCH

For one day, we were victor agast the Ed Davis of the world, and no one seemed “dismod” the FkelsteJohn KyperEarly member of Boston’s Gay Liberatn Front and an anizer of Boston’s first Pri ParaWe held our first march Boston 1971 — a year after New York. Groups hosted the 17th ternatnal nference of ILGA (The Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn), and the energy of the ternatnal legat who attend and the excement of hostg the gatherg only add to the drama of the untry’s first actual succsful para.

The Stonewall Uprisg wasn’t the only prott durg that time (nor was the most tense, that signatn go to the Snake P rt), though 's remembered today as a turng pot the LGBT civil rights weekend brgs another 50th anniversary, this time of the para—the first gay rights march, held on June 28th, 1970, and now a centerpiece of Pri weekend New York Cy.

And if we hadn't done that, nobody would remember the Stonewall today, ” said Karla Jay, a former women’s and genr studi profsor at Pace Universy, and the first woman chair of the Gay Liberatn says that wh a few days of Stonewall, flyers were already circulatg llg for a new kd of movement that wasn’t pole, and wouldn’t stay the shadows. Michael Evans/The New York TimJune 27, 2019When we hear of Pri march today, we tend to thk of fs and feathers, of men more than half-naked wavg om rabow-hued, Lurex-draped para floats, of Dyk on Bik who gun their motors fiance of genr norms, of wavg gay and trans celebri. They are fitas that perlate through the ci and sometim small towns of the veloped world, as well as some parts of the rt of the world, and they mark the fact that gay people exist numbers, provi documentary evince that we have more fun and are more fabulo than anyone else, that we are gay the old sense of the word.

INSI THE FIRST PRI PARA—A R PROTT FOR GAY LIBERATN

]But Pri was not always so unabashedly celebratory; for a long time, was a radil asslt on mastream valu, a means to fy the belief that homosexualy was a s, an illns and a crime, that gay people were subhuman. ” The piece argued that homosexualy, “is a pathetic ltle send-rate substute for realy, a piable flight om life, ” addg that “ serv no enuragement, no glamorizatn, no ratnalizatn, no fake stat as mory martyrdom, no sophistry about simple differenc taste — and, above all, no pretense that is anythg but a pernic sickns. I me out gradually and anxly: moved wh my first boyiend when I was 23 1987, and thereby grew hont wh iends and fay; wrote a novel wh gay them that was published when I was 31; joed the board of the Natnal L.

The prumptn that gay people were emasculated, weak, impotent had been fied by the Stonewall uprisg, but this was somethg new: not people rnered by the police who fought back, but an open and immediate assertn by people who unprovoked clared their paper vered the march, wrg, “Thoands of young men and women homosexuals om all over the Northeast marched om Greenwich Village to the Sheep Meadow Central Park yterday proclaimg ‘the new strength and pri of the gay people. Michael Evans/The New York TimThe article went on: “Michael Kotis, print of the Mattache Society, which has about 1, 000 members around the untry, said that ‘the gay people have disvered their potential strength and gaed a new pri’ sce a battle on June 29, 1969, between a crowd of homosexuals and policemen who raid the Stonewall Inn, a place equented by homosexuals at 53 Christopher Street. That progrs has been signifintly erod by the current admistratn, wh s support of relig exemptns that allow people to ny service to gay people, wh s attempts to ot trans people om the ary, wh s stctn to embassi not to fly the rabow flag for Pri month.

This year’s march fly the face of a vice print who, the print joked, would like to hang all gay people; of the ongog e of nversn therapi; of the ntued executns of gay people Iran and Islamic State-ntrolled terrori. Each week’s feature will clu imag om the New York Public Library’s LGBTQ week, we look back at the untry’s first gay pri march — held New York Cy on June 28, 1970, the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Rts — and what led up to that historic Saturday morng on June 28, 1969, police staged a raid at the Stonewall Inn, a mafia-n gay bar New York Cy's Greenwich Village neighborhood. The sign the wdow reads: “WE HOMOSEXUALS PLEAD WITH OUR PEOPLE TO PLEASE HELP MAINTAIN PEACEFUL AND QUIET CONDUCT ON THE STREETS OF THE VILLAGE — MATTACHINE” Diana Davi / New York Public LibraryJt a few days after the Stonewall Rts, gay activist Frank Kameny load up a b wh fellow activists and head down to Philalphia for the fifth “annual remr” picket prott outsi Inpennce Hall.

MARCHER AT THE CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATN DAY MARCH HOLDG A “GAY IS PROUD” SIGN, 1970

“I thk that was probably Frank’s first realizatn that this was a new orr, thgs were changg, ” Farman days after the "annual remr, " on July 6, 1969, the New York tabloid The Daily News ran a homophobic article about the Stonewall raid by Frank Lisky, tled “Homo Nt Raid, Queen Be Are Stgg Mad. ”Activists Lda Rhos, Arlene Khner, and Ellen Davi / New York Public LibrarySoon after the 1969 "remr", four activists — Craig Rodwell, Fred Sargeant, Lda Rhos and Ellen Broidy — cid to attend a regnal “homophile” nference and “propose that the staid ‘annual remrs’ of homophile pickets at Inpennce Hall Philalphia, held every July 4 for the prev five years, be replaced by a march New York Cy, " Farman men were members of the Homophile Youth Movement Neighborhoods, and the women members of Lavenr Menace. The march stretched 15 blocks — three quarters of a e — at s longt, The New York Tim march end Central Park's Sheep’s Meadow, where the Tim wrote marchers "gathered to prott laws that make homosexual acts between nsentg adults illegal and social ndns that often make impossible for them to display affectn public, mata jobs or rent apartments.

”Michael Brown, who is named by the Tim as a founr of the Gay Liberatn Front, told Tim reporter Lacey Fosburgh: “We have to e out to the open and stop beg ashamed, or else people will go on treatg as eaks. ”At the end of the march, protters gathered Central Park's Sheep's Meadow for a gay "be-"Diana Davi / New York Public LibraryLater that same day, Los Angel held a “Christopher Street Wt” celebratn on Hollywood Boulevard that drew thoands.

GAY LIBERATN NEW YORK CY, 1969-1973, BY LDSAY BRANSON

Pl Hoton reported the Los Angel Tim on the “hour-long, e-long procsn” down Hollywood Boulevard: “Sunday eveng had many thgs — joyo monstrators for sexual rights and digny, some sual attire, others briefs, ‘queens’ drag, ‘fairi’ wh paper wgs, clowns, leather-jacketed motorcyclists, a lbian on horseback, a python, whe hki, Amerin flags, hilar and somber signs and chants, a float pictg a homosexual nailed to the cross. NYPL has the archiv of pivotal anizatns, such as the Mattache Society of New York and the Gay Activists Alliance; the papers of pneerg activists like Barbara Gtgs; and vast holdgs LGBTQ pop culture. “Comg out” me wh threats of vlence and social that changed the aftermath of the 1969 Stonewall uprisg—when a group of LGBTQ people rted rponse to a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar New York Cy.

“The homosexual who wants to live a life of self-fulfillment our current society has all the rds stacked agast them, ” read one 1970 article about the upg march the Gay Liberatn Front News.

GAY DATG ATHENS

” The same day, a small group of San Francisns marched down Polk Street, then had a “gay-” piic that was broken up by equtrian and other New York groups had spent months planng the Manhattan event wh the help of anizers like Brenda Howard, a bisexual activist who had cut her anizg teeth durg the anti-Vietnam movement of the late 1960s. On November 2, 1969, jt 4 months after the Stonewall rts Craig Rodwell, his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, and Lda Rhos of the newly formed Gay Liberatn Front proposed the first “gay pri para” which was then lled the “CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY MARCH.

In Los Angel, Morris Kight (Gay Liberatn Front LA founr), Reverend Troy Perry (Universal Fellowship of Metropolan Communy Church founr), and Reverend Bob Humphri (Uned Stat Missn founr) gathered to plan a memoratn. In Atlanta and New York Cy, the march were lled Gay Liberatn March, and the day of celebratn was lled “Gay Liberatn Day”; Los Angel and San Francis they beme known as ‘Gay Freedom March’ and the day was lled “Gay Freedom Day”. Every Fourth of July begng 1965, the Remr march—named after the need to "remd" the public of the opprsn faced by the gay muny—aimed to secure acceptance by showg how unthreateng LGBT people were to the rt of society.

The property reopened 1967 as a gay club, retag the name Stonewall Inn, and was clud wh the boundari of the Greenwich Village Historic District when signated by the Landmarks Prervatn Commissn (LPC) on April 29, months after signatn the Stonewall Inn was at the center of a pivotal moment the LGBT Liberatn Movement — the Stonewall Rebelln, one of the most important events associated wh LGBT history New York Cy and the natn. Wh a few months, direct rponse to Stonewall, several activist anizatns were formed New York Cy, cludg the Gay Liberatn Front, the Gay Activists Alliance, Radilbians, and the Street Transvt Actn Revolutnari.

GAY RIGHTS

And around the world to promote LGBT civil the polil activism of the LGBT Liberatn Movement has been characterized by the mand for “gay power, ” the memorializatn of Stonewall is fed by a rollary ll for “gay pri” — a term that is still ed today to note the annual memoratn of the uprisg durg the annual Pri Para and Pri Month. The first such event was held on June 28, 1970 honor of the first anniversary of the uprisg — a march om Greenwich Village to Central anizers of the New York para enuraged other gay liberatn groups throughout the untry to hold their own events on the same day.

The followg year the events spread to more ci Ameri, and ternatnally to London and Paris and memorate the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall uprisg 1979, New York Cy clared June as Lbian and Gay Pri and History Month.

The dividual landmark signatn reports illumate the history of the properti that hosted semal gay theater productns, polil and muny service anizatns at the begng of the LGBT civil rights movement, and served as the rinc of two of the natn’s most important Ain-Amerin wrers and civil rights activists, the Jam Baldw Rince on the Upper Wt Si of Manhattan and the Audre Lor Rince on Staten the stggle to secure LGBT civil rights certaly did not beg at the Stonewall Inn, the legacy of Stonewall as the spiratn for the Gay Liberatn Movement and Gay Pri events has been well tablished.