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

Contents:

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

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

”When John D’E heard a group of LGBTQ activists would be marchg the streets of New York June 1970, he told his boyiend and several of his gay iends. For centuri, homosexualy had been stigmatized, crimalized, and persecuted. “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.

Now known as the first Pri paras, the gay liberatn march that took place New York and other U. )Stonewall sparks a movementDpe the rampant homophobia of the early 20th century, the LGBTQ muny had ma self visible before.

In 1965, for example, members of the Eastern Regnal Conference of Homophile Organizatns (ERCHO) began picketg each year on July 4 outsi Philalphia’s Inpennce Hall. “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 PRI

”The first gay liberatn marchAround the untry, groups began to plan their own memorative march. Around 150 marchers marched om Civic Center Plaza to Washgton Square shoutg slogans like “Gay power to gay people.

” 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. And monstrators shouted slogans like “Gay power, ” “Gay is okay, ” and “Gay, gay, all the way! I always say that gay liberatn was nceived at Stonewall 1969 and born at that first march.

” The marchers parad om Greenwich Village to Central Park, where they held a gay- gatherg wh speech and every muny weled s para. LAPD chief Edward Davis had a history of bashg LA’s gay muny, pared activists to bank robbers, and said the group would have to pay $1, 500 and post a $1.

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

5 ln surance bond, noted journalists Dudley Clenn and Adam Nagourney Out for Good, their history of the gay rights movement. “It changed forever my ncept of what meant to be part of the gay muny, ” Rev. 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.