Chigo hosted the first Gay Pri Para the Uned Stat on June 27, 1970. Here's a look back at how the annual event has evolved through the years.
Contents:
- GAY LIBERATN
- A ‘EAKG FAG REVOLUTNARY’ REMEMBERS THE EARLY YEARS OF GAY LIBERATN CHIGO
- GAY RIGHTS
- FROM GAY LIBERATN TO MARRIAGE EQUALY
- GAY LIBERATN FRONT
GAY LIBERATN
* chicago gay liberation front *
When the annual Pri Para steps off om the tersectn of Broadway and Montrose at noon on Sunday, June 30—wh Lori Lightfoot, Chigo’s first openly gay mayor, servg as honorary grand marshal— will reprent a very different md-set om the event that lnched the pri para tradn. Between 150 and 300 people (pendg on which acunt you read) showed up to celebrate what our flyer promotg the event clared ( all pal letters) was: “THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF GAY PEOPLE TELLING THE WARPED, SICK, MALADJUSTED, PURITAN AMERIKAN SOCIETY THAT THEY HAVE HAD ENOUGH SHIT.
A ‘EAKG FAG REVOLUTNARY’ REMEMBERS THE EARLY YEARS OF GAY LIBERATN CHIGO
Takg s cue om the revolutnary events at Stonewall New York Cy a year earlier, the LGBT muny Chigo held s first annual Gay Liberatn March June of 1970. This march (which me to be known as the PRIDE Para) enuraged people to fight homophobia, to e out and raise awarens of the issu and jtic facg the muny. * chicago gay liberation front *
”That flyer is on display as part of “Out of the Closets & Into the Streets: Power, Pri & Ristance Chigo’s Gay Liberatn Movement, ” a new exhib at Gerber/Hart Library and Archiv, the midwt’s largt LGBTQ library and rearch center. Conceived by the library’s director, Wil Brant, and curated by a team of young volunteers cludg profsnal librarians Chase Ollis and Jam Conley and signer Kurt Conley, the display is drawn om Gerber/Hart’s extensive archival march marked the first anniversary of a rt New York Cy on June 28, 1969, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay nightclub Greenwich Village owned by the Genove crime fay, reacted vlently to what had begun as a route police raid. That event, and the events leadg up to and followg , are well vered a new book, The Stonewall Rts: A Documentary History by Marc Ste (NYU Prs) that first Stonewall anniversary march wasn’t the first activy of Chigo Gay Liberatn, which started up fall 1969 after Universy of Chigo grad stunt Henry Wiemhoff placed an ad the Chigo Maroon stunt newspaper seekg a gay roommate.
The first public Gay Lib event I participated was a prott four months before the Stonewall march, on the snowy afternoon of Wednday, Febary 25, 1970, outsi the Loop headquarters of the Women’s Bar Associatn of Illois. Mattache Midwt, an tablished “homophile” anizatn town, published Manley’s picture s mimeographed monthly newsletter and mockgly suggted Manley himself was a closet se: “If I were gay and I didn’t want anybody to know, and I felt very, very guilty, I thk I might get a job where I uld cise the public tert, ” wrote David Stienecker, the newsletter’s edor. As historian Timothy Stewart-Wter, thor of Queer Clout: Chigo and the Rise of Gay Polics (Universy of Pennsylvania Prs), reunts a Slate article tled “Beyond Stonewall: How Gay History Looks Different From Chigo”:.
GAY RIGHTS
The gay rights movement the Uned Stat began the 1920s and saw huge progrs the 2000s, wh laws prohibg homosexual activy stck down and a Supreme Court lg legalizg same-sex marriage. * chicago gay liberation front *
Memorabilia om the early days of the Chigo Gay Alliance on display at Gerber/ Chase OllisThe Gerber/Hart exhib clus pi of the mimeographed newsletters that Gay Lib ed to spread s msage those long-ago pre-Inter days.
After publishg a one time “Gay Pri” paper to promote the 1971 Pri Para (which by then had been reloted to the Lln Park/Lakeview area on the north si), Robson put out two edns of The Paper, a 1972 tabloid that vered lol LGBTQ arts and polics.
GL’s women’s and Black uc went off their own directns; the Black uc turned to Third World Gay Revolutnari, led by Ortez Alrson, who went to prison for stroyg draft rerds downstate Pontiac.
FROM GAY LIBERATN TO MARRIAGE EQUALY
All prent exprsed a sire to avoid the fightg of petive groups other ci”—a reference to the ternece turf wars that tore at the fabric of New York’s gay muny around the same but issue of the CGA newsletter November 1970 explaed: “The Chigo Gay Alliance is actively terted alleviatg the ghetto (whether spirual or physil) ndns of homosexuals, dispellg the psychologil and soclogil mythology that has grown up about the subject of homosexualy, providg referral servic to homosexuals, helpg homosexuals ‘g out’ velop a sense of pri who they are and urage facg the generally hostile outsi world, to provi addnal social outlets so that homosexuals n meet each other as human begs, to change reprsive laws and end police and polil harassment, and to improve munitns between the homosexual and the heterosexual muni. A July 1973 issue of the Chigo Gay Csar reported that 20th Ward alrman Cliff Kelley, workg wh a group lled Illois Gays for Legislative Actn, had troduced legislatn the Chigo Cy Council to prohib discrimatn jobs, hog, and public acmodatns based on sexual orientatn. The Gay Csar was succeed by the weekly newspaper GayLife, found 1975 by the late Grant Ford, and then by Wdy Cy Tim, found 1985 by Tracy Baim, now publisher of the Rear, and still publishg prt and onle 34 years later.
GAY LIBERATN FRONT
Chigo Gay Liberatn, the Chigo Gay Alliance, and the other groups that sprang up the wake of Stonewall ran out of steam by the end of the , but the sense of empowerment they gave the muny—and the lsons we learned om their succs and setbacks—guid to the 1980s, when the AIDS epimic and the stggle for civil rights at the cy, unty, and state level drove a new activist spir.
Known as the “Guardian Angel of Chigo’s Gay Communy, ” Hart is one of the first female attorneys to practice crimal law Chigo and equently fends untls gay men arrted bars and tea rooms.
30, 1956, psychologist Evelyn Hooker livers her paper “The Adjtment of the Male Overt Homosexual, ” which was published a year later, at the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn Conventn Chigo. The se mak to the Supreme Court and Klepak is Liberatn Front members march through Bughoe Square (now Washgton Square Park) on their way to a rally at the Civic Center (now Daley Plaza) on June 27, 1970, as part of Chigo's first Gay Pri Week. (Anthony Robert La Penna/Chigo Tribune)1974: The Chigo Gay Medil Stunts Associatn creat Howard Brown Memorial Clic, a place where gays and lbians n receive unselg and sexually transmted fectns ttg and treatment.