A look back at a major turng pot the stggle for gay rights
Contents:
HOW ACTIVISTS ORGANIZED THE FIRST GAY PRI PARAS
Amid the flurry of rabow-lan rporate logos, sponsored events and news ems about gay pengus, is difficult to turn on a televisn or set foot public durg June whout the remr that is Pri Month for LGBT and queer people. Gee Dudley, a photographer and artist who also served as the first director of New York Cy’s Llie-Lohman Mm of Gay and Lbian Art, documented scen om pri paras New York Cy om the late 1970s through the early ‘90s.
The years saw Ana Bryant’s homophobic csa through the “Save Our Children” mpaign 1977, the electn and assassatn of Harvey Milk 1978, and the Whe Night rts the followg summer after the lenient sentencg of Milk’s murrer, Dan Whe. And October 1979, the Natnal March on Washgton for Gay and Lbian Rights took place wh roughly 100, 000 participants. “It was, a sense, the year we buted on the larger public stage, ” says Jim Saslow, a profsor of art history at the Cy Universy of New York and an early gay activist.
“We were beg acceptable enough that a gay person uld have a signifint polil reer, but we also beme very aware of how much of a nerve that was touchg for nservative people.