1970: A First-Person Acunt of the First Gay Pri March - The Village Voice

Contents:

• REMEMBERG THE 1970 CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATN DAY MARCH
• LGBTQ HISTORY MONTH: THE ROAD TO AMERI'S FIRST GAY PRI MARCH
• MARCHER AT THE CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATN DAY MARCH HOLDG A “GAY IS PROUD” SIGN, 1970
• CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATION DAY 1971
• THE FIRST GAY PRI PARAS
• 1970: A FIRST-PERSON ACUNT OF THE FIRST GAY PRI MARCH

REMEMBERG THE 1970 CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATN DAY MARCH

Interviews have been nnsed and eded for length and clary.ImageCred...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.

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

As my iend Jerry Hoose ed to say about that year, “we went om the shadows to sunlight.” Today, my origal marshal’s badge is on display the Smhsonian.Karla 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. For one day, we were victor agast the Ed Davis of the world, and no one seemed “dismod” the least.ImageCred...Avram 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. The march began at a baret bar lled Jacqu — which is still there and still gay — and ma three addnal stops along the route where we read a seri of mands.

ActivistI grew up Jersey Cy close to the PATH tra and was lucky to fd my first boyiend my high school sophomore homeroom class. Jam GreenProfsor of morn Lat Amerin history at Brown Universy and -anizer of Brazil’s first Gay Pri marchI lived São Plo durg the dictatorship of the late 1970s. 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 fear was gone.ImageCred...Ariel Schal/Associated PrsChiké Frankie EdozienAuthor of “Liv of Great Men: Livg and Lovg as an Ain Gay Man”I me to the U.S.

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

The tle is “Liv of Great Men: Livg and Lovg as an Ain Gay Man,” not “Liv of Great: Livg and Lovg as an Ain Gay Man.”How we handle rrectnsA versn of this article appears prt on  , Sectn F, Page 6 of the New York edn wh the headle: How We Ma History. 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.

“Thoands of young men and women homosexuals om all over the Northeast” participated, The Tim reported, “proclaimg ‘the new strength and pri of the gay people.

CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATION DAY 1971

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. ]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.

Declarg yourself is now so route (at least among people more liberal muni) that we fet the speratn Harvey Milk’s 1978 entreaty that everyone who was gay e out if any progrs was to be ma. Some members of the para saw patrts standg on the sil, watchg; one proclaimed that he would ll out on the spot the gay iends he saw who weren’t participatg.

THE FIRST GAY PRI PARAS

My favore photo is the one of people volved a sort of le dance, prumably Sheep Meadow, where the para wound up as what the anizers lled a “Gay-In. Fred Sargeant wrote The Village Voice: “Before Stonewall, gay lears had primarily promoted silent vigils and pole pickets, such as the ‘Annual Remr’ Philalphia.

” Kameny and his Mattache Society, long the loust and most proment voice of homosexual advancement, had been gradualists who tried to work om wh. ” 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. Task Force only my early 40s, around the time I married and had children and realized that gay pri had bee a personal imperative. A few years ago, I was ntacted by a reporter om my high school paper who was wrg an article wh the workg tle “Gay at Horace Mann: A Historil Perspective.

1970: A FIRST-PERSON ACUNT OF THE FIRST GAY PRI MARCH

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. The Tim quoted Michael Brown, then 29 and a foundg member of the Gay Liberatn Front: “We have to e out to the open and stop beg ashamed, or else people will go on treatg as eaks. 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. The first gay pri march took place New York Cy on June 28, 1970 — the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall holdg Christopher Street Liberatn Day banner, Davi / New York Public LibraryOct.

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 ps barrid themselv to the bar, and then the gay mob outsi the bar began to throw bricks and rocks toward the door and tried to break through the board up Stonewall Inn, September 1969. 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.