Rememberg The 1970 Christopher Street Gay Liberatn Day March - Gothamist

Contents:

• INSI THE FIRST PRI PARA—A R PROTT FOR GAY LIBERATN
• REMEMBERG THE 1970 CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATN DAY MARCH
• LGBTQ HISTORY MONTH: THE ROAD TO AMERI'S FIRST GAY PRI MARCH
• HOW ACTIVISTS ORGANIZED THE FIRST GAY PRI PARAS
• PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI
• GAY RIGHTS

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

” 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. 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.

” Today, my origal marshal’s badge is on display the 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 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. 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 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.

REMEMBERG THE 1970 CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATN DAY MARCH

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.

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. 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.

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

” 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 anisers like Brenda Howard, a bisexual activist who had cut her anisg teeth durg the anti-Vietnam movement of the late 1960s. Five months after the rts, activists Craig Rodwell, his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Brody and Lda Rhos proposed a rolutn at the Eastern Regnal Conference of Homophile Organizatns (ERCHO) Philalphia that a march be held New York Cy to memorate the one-year anniversary of the raid.

HOW ACTIVISTS ORGANIZED THE FIRST GAY PRI PARAS

”Spencer Grant/Getty ImagView of the large crowd, some of whom are holdg up handma signs and banners, participatg a gay and lbian pri para the Back Bay neighborhood of San Francis, activists marched down Polk Street and held a “Gay-” at Goln Gate Park on June 28th, too.

“Not only did liberatnists go to Philalphia to show solidary wh the black movement, but was there that Huey Newton as lear of the Panthers, first gave clear support of the Gay Cse, sayg that homosexuals were maybe the most opprsed people of Amerin society, and uld well be the most revolutnary. On 13th November, GLF ma the first ever, public monstratn the UK by lbians and gay men at Highbury Fields, Islgton, to prott the e of “pretty policemen” agent provotrs ed by the police to entrap gay men to attemptg acts of gross cency, a standard police practice and an easy way for them to crease the figur for crime tectn and prosecutn.

An Anti-Psychiatry Group foced on analysg and attackg the Psychiatric Establishments wholale acceptance of Juo Christian prejudice, Biblil thory, and the e of electric shock/emetic dg programm on gays and lbians who did not f , or who were found guilty of breakg the law.

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

But gay men don’t need to opprs women orr to fulfil their own psycho-sexual needs, and gay women don’t have to relate sexually to the male opprsor, so that at this moment time, the et and most equal relatnships are most likely to be between homosexuals.

David Rben’s book, “Everythg you wanted to know about sex – but were aaid to ask”, which claimed to tell ndid facts whilst avoidg moral judgement and the sectns on gays and lbians ntaed referenc to light bulbs, cucumbers, and the e of wire at hangers for abortns. In 1972, Barbara Gtgs (om the Dghters of Bilis) and Frank Kameny (om the Mattache Society) tried to raise awarens for the medil fn of homosexualy of which was fed as a mental disorr the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs, the medil dictnary).

Soon they were advotg nothg ls than “gay liberatn” nscns-raisg groups to fundraisg danc, protts outsi hostile newspapers to refug for homels trans and queer people, this surge LGBTQ+ anisg took many forms, and as the first anniversary of the rts me to view, some the muny began discsg how bt to mark what was beg regard as the “Bastille day” of gay rights. The roots of that bate go back to s earlit days, and suggt that Pri and the Stonewall rts have always been part of a ntent battle for inty and ownership – a battle that has helped produce the very ia of what beg a lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr or queer person might Stonewall rts were not the birth of the gay rights movement. Seven years before that, when police had raid Coopers, a donut shop the cy ntled between two gay bars, LGBTQ+ patrons had attacked officers after the arrt of a number of drag queens, sex workers and gay had been a gay rights movement the US among people scribg themselv as “homophil” sce the late 40s.

GAY RIGHTS

Hirschfeld’s scientific approach, bed wh his sympathetic treatment of LGBTQ+ people – he was himself homosexual – had been key velopg the ia that their shared experienc uld be unrstood not jt as discrete sexual (and crimal) acts, nor as psychiatric illns, but as a legible sexual and genr inty, which uld be afford civil rights. ) The Mattache Society had radil roots activism, takg on the anisatnal stcture of cells and central anisatn favoured by the Communist well as publishg magaz for gay men, and supportg victims of police entrapment, the society had wir polil aims, cludg to “unify homosexuals isolated om their own kd” and to “te homosexuals and heterosexuals toward an ethil homosexual culture parallelg the cultur of the Negro, Mexin and Jewish peopl”. Such aims would bee key to the ncept of “gay pri” some two s two s, however, would be among the harst for LGBTQ+ people US history, as the greater visibily of the homosexual inty led to a nservative backlash, and a moral panic the media that was palised upon by policians.

After he was forced to appear before the Hoe Un-Amerin Activi Commtee, Hay was expelled om the Mattache Society, now a growg anisatn of a few thoand men, and he wasn’t the last radil to be thrown homophile movement began to tackle “subversive elements” and orient self around rpectabily. In 1966, the Mattache Society challenged this policy wh a “sip-” at Juli’, a Greenwich Village bar that was popular wh gay men, but was attemptg to shake off s homosexual bars equently flouted this law, explog legal loophol and payg off the NYPD while chargg their LGBTQ+ ctomers high pric for watered-down drks.

When, ncerned by the ongog unrt, members of the society pated on the board-up wdows of the Stonewall “WE HOMOSEXUALS PLEAD WITH OUR PEOPLE TO PLEASE HELP MAINTAIN PEACEFUL AND QUIET CONDUCT ON THE STREETS OF THE VILLAGE – MATTACHINE”, their ll went unheed.