Date of the first gay pride parade in los angeles
The legacy of that one act in a New York City bar spawned marches throughout the country in almost every major city, featuring corporate allies. What started as an act of defiance is now a way for all facets of the LGBT community to come together in a safe space. In the intervening years, the celebration of Pride with marches and festivals has moved away from its origins as a protest and a refusal to hide or be silent.
Jersey LGBTI Pride Parade viewers in Asbury Park in 2012. Members of the LGBT community in Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco had their own parades in a show of solidarity.
On the first-year anniversary, they marched in what would become the first gay pride parade in United States history. The patrons were joined by men, women, and drag queens from all over the city, shouting “gay power” as the police did their best to disperse the crowd.Īfter that night, other demonstrations popped up throughout the city. On June 28, 1969, a group of patrons at the Greenwich Village bar took a stand against police harassment and intimidation. The concept of Pride started as an act of revolt and defiance in 1970, following the Stonewall Riots in New York City. A birds-eye view in Asbury Park of the NJ LGBTI Pride festival grounds. The celebration is just one of many celebrations of gay pride taking place throughout the month of June and beyond. This June marks the 26th year of the celebration, which takes place across the street from Asbury’s historic Convention Hall. It's her efforts that helped gay activists lay the foundation for weeklong celebrations of gay pride leading up to the climactic Gay Pride Parade.Asbury Park Jersey LGBTI Pride Parade in 2015 photo by Steve DovidioĪsbury Park has long been synonymous with New Jersey’s largest yearly LGBT celebration. As Queerty notes, "Howard's voice remained one of the loudest, most exuberant and productive of the time.
#Date of the first gay pride parade in los angeles series
Grassroots activist and founder of the New York Area Bisexual Network Brenda Howard, who is sometimes known as the "Mother of Pride," coordinated a week-long series of events around Pride Day, including a dance. Sargeant recalls that it took “nearly a year of 1960s-style back-and-forth consciousness-raising” and “months of planning and internal controversy.” Over a dozen LGBTQ+ rights groups were involved in the planning, including lesbian feminist group the Lavender Menace, formed in response to mainstream feminism's exclusion of lesbians Gay Liberation Front, formed post-Stonewall lesbian civil rights organization Daughters of Bilitis trans rights organization Queens Liberation Front and various student groups. Their first Annual Reminder was held in 1965, and was intended to "remind the American people that a substantial number of American citizens were denied the rights of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,'" according to Philadelphia LGBTQ+ rights organization Philly Pride. Craig Rodwell (who happened Fred Sargeant's partner) was the Mattachine Society member who originally came up with the idea for The Annual Reminder. We were supposed to be unthreatening.” The event was put on by a gay men's rights group called the Mattachine Society, which was one of the earliest LGBTQ+ rights groups in the United States (it formed in 1950).
Required dress on men was jackets and ties for women, only dresses. It was usually “a small, polite group of gays and lesbians outside Liberty Hall," Sargeant describes. This event was a somber, and tightly orchestrated affair. At the time, the largest LGBTQ+ rights rally was a yearly silent vigil called “The Annual Reminder” held in Philadelphia.