On Sunday, June 28, 1970, at around noon, in New York gay activist groups held their own pride parade, known as the Christopher Street Liberation Day, to recall the events of Stonewall one year earlier.
The Advocate reported "Over 1,000 homosexuals and their friends staged, not just a protest march, but a full-blown parade down world-famous Hollywood Boulevard." The marchers convened on McCadden Place in Hollywood, marched north and turned east onto Hollywood Boulevard. Unlike later editions, the first gay parade was very quiet. Kight received death threats right up to the morning of the parade. parade organizers and participants knew there were risks of violence. The eleventh hour California Supreme Court decision ordered the police commissioner to issue a parade permit citing the “constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression.” From the beginning, L.A. That, too, was dismissed when the California Superior Court ordered the police to provide protection as they would for any other group. After the American Civil Liberties Union stepped in, the commission dropped all its requirements but a $1,500 fee for police service. Davis telling him, “As far as I’m concerned, granting a permit to a group of homosexuals to parade down Hollywood Boulevard would be the same as giving a permit to a group of thieves and robbers.” Grudgingly, the Police Commission granted the permit, though there were fees exceeding $1.5 million. Perry recalled the Los Angeles Police Chief Edward M. They named their organization Christopher Street West, "as ambiguous as we could be." But Rev. But securing a permit from the city was no easy task. They settled on a parade down Hollywood Boulevard. In Los Angeles, Morris Kight (Gay Liberation Front LA founder), Reverend Troy Perry (Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches founder) and Reverend Bob Humphries (United States Mission founder) gathered to plan a commemoration. The West Coast of the United States saw a march in San Francisco on Jand 'Gay-in' on J and a march in Los Angeles on June 28, 1970. Subsequent Chicago parades have been held on the last Sunday of June, coinciding with the date of many similar parades elsewhere.
The date was chosen because the Stonewall events began on the last Saturday of June and because organizers wanted to reach the maximum number of Michigan Avenue shoppers. On Saturday, June 27, 1970, Chicago Gay Liberation organized a march from Washington Square Park ("Bughouse Square") to the Water Tower at the intersection of Michigan and Chicago avenues, which was the route originally planned, and then many of the participants spontaneously marched on to the Civic Center (now Richard J. The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar which catered to an assortment of patrons, but which was popular with the most marginalized people in the gay community: transvestites, transgender people, effeminate young men, hustlers, and homeless youth. Early on the morning of Saturday, June 28, 1969, LGBTQ people rioted following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. All of these groups held protests at the United Nations and the White House, in 1965. Mattachine members were also involved in demonstrations in support of homosexuals imprisoned in Cuban labor camps. In 1965, the gay rights protest movement was visible at the Annual Reminder pickets, organized by members of the lesbian group Daughters of Bilitis, and the gay men's group Mattachine Society.
See also: Annual Reminder, Stonewall riots, and Gay pride In 2019, New York and the world celebrated the largest international Pride celebration in history: Stonewall 50 - WorldPride NYC 2019, produced by Heritage of Pride commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, with five million attending in Manhattan alone.
The events became annual and grew internationally. In 1970, pride and protest marches were held in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco around the first anniversary of Stonewall. The parades seek to create community and honor the history of the movement. Most pride events occur annually, and some take place around June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, a pivotal moment in modern LGBTQ social movements. The events also at times serve as demonstrations for legal rights such as same-sex marriage. The Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, the site of the June 1969 Stonewall riots, which spawned the gay rights movement and pride parades around the world, above and the 2011 New York City Pride March honored the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York that year, below.Ī pride parade (also known as pride march, pride event, or pride festival) is an outdoor event celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) social and self acceptance, achievements, legal rights, and pride.