The Pride Month We Know & Love
In 1969, the Stonewall Riots occurred. This is considered the beginning of the modern queer rights movement. At the time, it was called the gay rights movement and the word gay, while meaning homosexual, also was an umbrella term that included all of what we now call the queer community.
On November 2, 1969, a group of people proposed the first gay parade be held in New York City, both to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots and to be an annual reminder that we are in a struggle for fundamental human rights. They called on homophile organizations throughout the country to hold demonstrations the same day to show nationwide support.
On June 28, 1970, the Christopher Street Liberation Day marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots with a march. Christopher Street is the road in front of the Stonewall Inn and the road participants marched down. The New York Times reported (on the front page) that the marchers took up the entire street for 15 city blocks. Marches were also held in Chicago & Los Angeles while San Francisco held a “gay-in.”
In 1971, marches took place in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, London, Paris, West Berlin, and Stockholm.
By 1972 the participating cities included Atlanta, Brighton, Buffalo, Detroit, Washington D.C., Miami, and Philadelphia, as well as San Francisco.
The first marches were both serious and fun and served to inspire the widening activist movement. There was a dramatic increase in the number of people organizing for queer rights. In 1969, there were 50 to 60 gay groups in the country. In 1970 that increased to at least 1500. In 1972 it was 2500.
Prior to 1969, the organizations called themselves the homophile movement. They focused on showing that gay people are respectable and politely asked for discriminatory policies to be removed. Their marches had dress requirements, age limits as to who could participate, and even the signs held had to be pre-approved.
The Stonewall riots with images of gays retaliating against police changed things and inspired new activists. They considered the movement an uprising and renamed it the gay liberation movement. We are gonna be who we are and live as we want, respectability be damned. Parades and festivals were to specifically to not have dress requirements or age limits.
In Nazi Germany, gay men were prisoners in the concentration camps and their clothes had inverted pink triangles sewn on them to mark them as homosexual men (this also included bisexual men and trans women). This pink triangle was extra large so they could be easily identified from a distance.
After the concentration camps were shut down at the end of World War II and prisoners freed, the gay survivors were not released but locked up in prison. Homosexuality was illegal in Germany. West Germany continued to imprison them until 1994!
In 1973, Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin, a German gay liberation group, called for gay men to wear the pink triangle as a memorial to past victims and to protest continuing discrimination. This pink triangle became a symbol of the gay rights movement and many displayed it proudly, but the symbol couldn’t shake its association with the horrors of the Nazis.
Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S., urged artist Gilbert Baker, an openly gay man and a drag queen, to create a new inspiring symbol for the gay community to replace the Nazi symbol.
It’s thought that Baker was at least partially inspired by the Judy Garland song “Over the Rainbow” (Garland being among the first gay icons). He also liked the idea of a flag, as that is a way of being visible. The rainbow flag was unveiled at the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade. After the parade, hot pink was removed from new flags due to fabric unavailability. The murder of Harvey Milk in November 1978 led to a surge of requests for the Rainbow flag, which led to it being adopted by people around the country.
For the 1979 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade, the organizers reduced the number of colors from 7 to 6 so that they could divide it in half and have 3 colors decorating one side of the street, and the other three colors on the other side. This 6-colored rainbow flag became the standard and quickly replaced pink triangles.
In 2003, a mile-long version of the rainbow flag was made by Baker for the 35th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, this recognized the rainbow flag as THE international symbol for LGBTQ pride, it can be seen all around the world.
On June 26, 2015, the White House was illuminated in the rainbow flag colors to mark the legalization of same-sex marriages across the country.
In June 2017, the city of Philadelphia adopted a revised version of the flag that adds black and brown stripes to the top of the standard six-colors to draw attention to issues of people of color within the LGBTQ community.
In June 2018 designer Daniel Quasar released a redesign incorporating elements from both the Philadelphia flag and trans pride flag to bring focus on inclusion and progress within the community.
But when did it go from Gay Liberation to Pride?
Meetings to organize the first march in New York City began in early January 1970. Brenda Howard, a bisexual activist, is known as the “Mother of Pride” for her work in coordinating the march. She also originated the idea for a week-long series of events around the march.
She wanted to create a number of events to bring in people from out of town and wanted to unite the events under a label. The first idea was ‘Gay Power,’ however gay activist L. Craig Schoonmaker didn’t like that suggestion. He explained, “There’s very little chance for [gay] people in the world to have power…But anyone can have pride in themselves, and that would make them happier as people, and produce the movement likely to produce change.“
Brenda Howard, L. Craig Schoonmaker and bisexual activist Robert A. Martin (aka Donny the Punk) are credited with popularizing the word "Pride” to describe the festivities in New York.
As the 1980s approached, there was a cultural shift in the gay movement. Just as the elections of Ronald Reagan & Margaret Thatcher indicated a conservative shift in their countries, activists of a less radical, more conservative nature began taking over the march committees in different cities. They dropped “Gay Liberation” and “Gay Freedom” from the names, replacing them with Schoomaker’s idea of “Gay Pride.” This also coincided with the replacement of the more radical pink triangles for the more positive rainbow flags.
The word “pride” was embraced as it defies the bigotry and hatred against the LGBTQIA+ community. It also teaches people they should be proud of themselves rather than feel shame. Replacing shame with pride helps people to come out and to be more assertive about who they are and that they deserve the same rights as others.
In 1999, President Bill Clinton issued a proclamation declaring that the LGBTQIA+ community and its allies would “celebrate the anniversary of Stonewall every June in America as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.” President Barack Obama issued a proclamation in 2009 declaring June LGBTQIA+ Pride Month.
This is how we got Pride Month!
Part of the original ideas of parades was to bring queer people and queer culture into what was considered heteronormative spaces. Queer lives were seen as dissident and radical.
Today Pride events have taken on a festive character and it’s fun to join hundreds or thousands of other queer people.
Pride events still have some of the original political or activist character. Most offer some aspect dedicated to remembering victims of AIDS and anti-LGBT violence. Booths are often on hand with people collecting signatures in support of constitutional amendments or petitions for laws & policies to change.
Large parades often involve floats, dancers, drag queens and amplified music, and they usually include political and educational contingents, such as local politicians, and groups from LGBT institutions of various kinds, such as PFLAG. Other typical parade participants include local LGBT-friendly churches and LGBT-employee associations from large corporations.
The Stonewall riots, as well as the immediate and the ongoing political organizing that occurred following them, were fully participated in by lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people, and gays, from all races and backgrounds. Pride festivals and parades continue to be inclusive spaces.
Historically these events were first named Gay, the word at that time being used to cover the entire spectrum of what is now called the queer. Today these festivals & parades are often called Pride.
