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

Contents:

• LGBTQ HISTORY MONTH: THE ROAD TO AMERI'S FIRST GAY PRI MARCH
• GAY PRI
• HOW ACTIVISTS ORGANIZED THE FIRST GAY PRI PARAS

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

The first gay pri march took place New York Cy on June 28, 1970 — the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall holdg Christopher Street Liberatn Day banner, Davi / New York Public LibraryOct. 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 ps barrid themselv to the bar, and then the gay mob outsi the bar began to throw bricks and rocks toward the door and tried to break through the board up Stonewall Inn, September 1969.

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. Acrdg to historian and thor Lillian Farman, the picket protts were “staid” and reflected Kameny’s sire for gay tegratn to society and the workforce. Mart Luther Kg, Jr., and massive protts agast the Vietnam war, young gay activists mand faster and more radil change.

“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.

GAY PRI

”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.

”Around Sheep’s Meadow, protters shouted, “Say loud, gay is proud. ”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.

Let me also say that the straight prs always unrtimated the siz of the gay monstratns, but I n tell you was astonishg and huge. “We're beg ant, and we won't be harassed and grad any more, ” Mart Robson, a member of the Gay Activist Alliance, told The New York Tim.

HOW ACTIVISTS ORGANIZED THE FIRST GAY PRI PARAS

(Correctn: A prev versn of this story rrectly stated that Fred Sargeant and Craig Rodwell were members of the Gay Liberatn Front.

NYPL has the archiv of pivotal anizatns, such as the Mattache Society of New York and the Gay Activists Alliance; the papers of pneerg activists like Barbara Gtgs; and vast holdgs LGBTQ pop culture.