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
• GAY LIBERATN NEW YORK CY, 1969-1973, BY LDSAY BRANSON
• CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATN DAY, THE STORY OF THE FIRST PRI
• ABOUT THE CENTERSCE 1983 THE CENTER HAS BEEN SUPPORTG, FOSTERG AND CELEBRATG THE LGBT MUNY OF NEW YORK CY. FD MORE RMATN ON AND OUR WORK ABOUT THE CENTER. VIS ABOUT THE CENTEROUR MISSNCYBER CENTERCENTER HISTORYRACE EQUYMEDIA CENTERLEARSHIP & STAFFEMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNICORPORATE PARTNERSHIPSANNUAL REPORTS & FANCIAL INFORMATNCONTACT USHOURS & LOTNSEMAPSUPPORT THE CENTER
• CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATION DAY 1971
• INSI THE FIRST PRI PARA—A R PROTT FOR GAY LIBERATN
• PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI

REMEMBERG THE 1970 CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATN DAY MARCH

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.

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.

“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.

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

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.

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

”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. 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.

Christopher Street Liberatn Day (CSLD) was a rare moment of uny among New York Cy's divergent gay groups, who me together "spe polil and social differenc" to "affirm our pri, our liftyle and our mment to each other.

CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATN DAY, THE STORY OF THE FIRST PRI

"[1] To acmodate the terts of the many different groups participatg, the Christopher Street Liberatn Day Commtee named the days leadg up to the march "Gay Pri Week, " when dividual anizatns uld host their own events and activi. Gatherg on Christopher Street, marchers ma their way up 6th Avenue to Central Park, where they spent the afternoon listeng to speech, hangg out on the lawn, and revelg the excement of havg been part of the first gay pri march history. View all monuments NYC Parks, as well as temporary public art stallatns on our NYC Public Art Map and LiberatnHistoryThis sculpture by Gee Segal (1924–2000) honors the gay rights movement and memorat the events at the Stonewall Inn oppose this park that gave rise to the movement.

In 1966, closed for renovatns, and reopened the followg year as a private club known as Stonewall Inn - a bar and dance hall which, like numero lol tablishments, tered to the homosexual muny of Greenwich Village. Wslow, ASLADcriptn: Group of four figur (two seated, two standg), two World's Fair-style bench, plaqueMaterials: Figur--bronze (whe lacquer); bench--steel (black pat)Dimensns: Group H: 5'11" W: 16' D: 7'6"; Each bench L: 16'; Plaque H: 7 5/8" W: 7 5/8"Cast: 1980Dedited: June 23, 1992Foundry: Johnson Atelier, Haton Township, NJDonor: Mildred Andrews FundInscriptn: GAY LIBERATION / BY / GEORGE SEGAL / BRONZE CAST -- 1980 / DEDICATED -- 1992 /---/ GIFT OF THE MILDRED ANDREWS FUND / TO THE CITY OF NEW YORK /Please note, the NAME field clus a primary signatn as well as alternate namgsoften mon or popular age.

ABOUT THE CENTERSCE 1983 THE CENTER HAS BEEN SUPPORTG, FOSTERG AND CELEBRATG THE LGBT MUNY OF NEW YORK CY. FD MORE RMATN ON AND OUR WORK ABOUT THE CENTER. VIS ABOUT THE CENTEROUR MISSNCYBER CENTERCENTER HISTORYRACE EQUYMEDIA CENTERLEARSHIP & STAFFEMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNICORPORATE PARTNERSHIPSANNUAL REPORTS & FANCIAL INFORMATNCONTACT USHOURS & LOTNSEMAPSUPPORT THE CENTER

Rodwell spent the followg month lobbyg different groups the background, and at the meetg of the Eastern Regnal Conference of Homophile Organizatns (ERCHO) Philalphia on November 2nd Rodwell, Broidy and Rhos proposed a rolutn.

It was thought that more people were likely to attend on a Sunday, and as they wanted to mark the anniversary of The Stonewall Rt, was agreed that the march would be on Sunday 28th June 1970 and would be lled Christopher Street Gay Liberatn Day.

“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 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.

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.

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

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.

PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI

” 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.