Gay Events Chigo | Pri Month, LGBTQ Ftivals & Shows

Contents:

• LGBTQ HISTORY MONTH: THE ROAD TO AMERI'S FIRST GAY PRI MARCH
• INSI THE FIRST PRI PARA—A R PROTT FOR GAY LIBERATN
• GAY RIGHTS
• GAY PRI

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

The uprisg beme a talyst for an emergg gay rights movement as anizatns such as the Gay Liberatn Front and the Gay Activists Alliance were formed, moled after the civil rights movement and the women’s rights movement. 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.

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

“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.

GAY RIGHTS

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.

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.

Origs of Pri MonthThe roots of the gay rights movement go back to the early 1900s, when a handful of dividuals North Ameri and Europe created gay and lbian anizatns such as the the Society for Human Rights, found by Henry Gerber Chigo the 1920s. Followg World War II, a small number of groups like the Mattache Society and the Dghters of Bilis published gay- and lbian-posive newsletters and grew more vol mandg regnn for, and prottg discrimatn agast, gays and lbians. In 1966, for example, members of the Mattache Society held a “sip-” prott at Juli, a bar New York Cy, where they mand drks after announcg that they were gay, vlatn of lol laws agast servg alhol to gays and lbians.

GAY PRI

Dpe some progrs the postwar era, basic civil rights were largely nied to gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr people—until one night June, 1969, when the gay rights movement took a fur step forward wh a seri of vlent rts New York Cy. By the time the Stonewall Rts end on July 2, 1969, the gay rights movement went om beg a ge issue largely ignored by policians and the media to ont-page news Gay Pri ParaOne year later, durg the anniversary of the Stonewall Rts, activists New York Cy marched through the streets of Manhattan memoratn of the uprisg.

The march, anized by the Eastern Regnal Conference of Homophile Organizatns (ERCHO) and the Christopher Street Liberatn Day Umbrella Commtee, was named the Christopher Street Liberatn Day time, that celebratn me to be simply known as the Gay Pri Para.