By Natalie Wendt |


If you participate in any of this year’s LGBT Pride events, you’ll be part of living history. Parades promoting LGBT visibility and marches for gay rights have taken place every June for the last fifty-four years.

Today, gay pride parades are usually colorful celebrations. The events that sparked the first June Pride events, however, were violent.


In 1969, police raids on gay and lesbian bars were common. Though the police entered the establishments claiming to look for liquor license violations, they frequently arrested law-abiding patrons. Those dressed in drag or in a way that didn’t conform to their perceived gender were especially targeted. Records of the arrests linked patrons to gay establishments and these records were often made public. Anti-gay harassment was largely unchecked. Employers could and did fire employees for their sexual orientation. Although GLBT rights organizations existed in the U.S. at the time, their membership numbered only in the thousands. Staying in the closet was a fact of life for many. During police raids, patrons usually tried to sneak out the back and draw as little attention to themselves as possible.

All that changed on the night of June 27th, 1969, when New York police raided Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. Instead of leaving quietly, the costumers who were not arrested formed a crowd outside of the bar. The crowd swelled to 500 or 600 people, including those from neighboring bars. They shouted “Gay power!” as police loaded the wagon with those arrested. The crowd threw bottles at the police wagon.

A female patron was treated roughly by the police officers trying to force her into the wagon and called out to the crowd to do something. It was the last straw. A riot broke out, and the crowd threw trashcans, rocks and bricks. The demonstration was spontaneous and furious. Transgender rights activist Sylvia (Ray) Rivera, a riot participant, later said that the Stonewall Riot “was one of the greatest moments in my life.”

The riots lasted for days. News of the rebellion attracted national attention. For one of the first times in modern history, gays had openly resisted government-sponsored persecution. Inspired by the riots, gay activism increased. When the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots rolled around, it was commemorated with gay rights marches in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In New York the march took up fifteen city blocks.

Throughout the 1970s, the gay rights movement was grassroots but growing. Each year, the number of cities participating in the June Gay Pride marches and parades increased. In 1971, Gay Pride marches took place in several American cities and spread to Europe, with parades in France, England, Germany and Sweden. The Pacific Northwest joined the movement when Seattle began holding Gay Pride marches in 1974.

In the 1970s, bisexual activist Brenda Howard developed the idea of a week of celebrations leading up to the actual parade. Howard was also one of the original organizers of first Stonewall anniversary march. These celebrations and activities later expanded, transforming June into a month of Pride.

In the 1980s, the HIV/AIDS crisis brought a sense of urgency to the gay community. The movement became more organized. The Gay Pride Day Parade became the official name of the June parades, which until then had used various names in different cities. Gay activism dramatically increased throughout the decades following Stonewall. In 1970, the first anniversary march for the Stonewall Riots had 5,000 participants. In 1987, 600,000 people marched in Washington, D.C. for gay equality.

In June 2000, President Bill Clinton declared June to officially be “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month". Today, Gay Pride parades and other events span the globe, reaching India, South Korea, and Brazil. Millions take part in the festivities every year.


Natalie Wendt is a busy queer mom who sometimes writes. She graduated from College of Santa Fe with a Bachelor’s degree in education, and San Francisco State University with a Master of Arts - MA Special Education and Teaching. She has worked as a special education teacher and Board-Certified Behavior Analyst. She lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Share this article
The link has been copied!