STRADLEY RONON DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION What Is Pride, and Why Do We Celebrate It? by Jackson K. Hart enacted for the purpose page out of anti-war and Black Panther of targeting and playbooks. Such groups formed with a incarcerating members common goal: securing human rights of the community. In fact, and civil liberties for LGBTQ people. City – home of Nothing less would do. the largest U.S. population of LGBTQ people – created On June 28th, 1970, the first anniversary special vice squads of the , an assembly to raid gay establishments for the Christopher Street Liberation and entrap gay men. Day was held in . This event – along with simultaneous In the early hours of marches in Los Angeles and Chicago that fateful day in June, – was the first LGBTQ Pride march in U.S. however, patrons of the history. As the New York Times reported Stonewall Inn resisted it, participants marched 51 blocks to what was supposed to Central Park and stretched across 15 city be a routine police raid. blocks as they made their journey. Roughly handcuffed, the arrested waited outside Pride Is a Radical Act of Protest: Over for police wagons to the years, numerous cities across the transport them to the world have joined in commemorating station. In the interim, the LGBTQ civil rights movement in June a gathering crowd of by holding a march or parade. We march Welcome to the month of June, or as we witnesses formed, and in the LGBTQ and ally community call it: tensions erupted into Pride Month. For many, it’s a month of action when a lesbian, marches, rainbow flags, glitter, singing, complaining about dancing, and radical forms of self- her tight handcuffs, expression. You would be hard-pressed was beaten with a billy to find a more exciting month of the club and thrown into year. Of course, June wasn’t always a police wagon. What Pride Month… resulted were several days of rioting: wagons Pride Is History: In order to understand were overturned, how we got here, it’s important to windows smashed, know where we’ve been. Historically, police outnumbered and Pride began on June 28th, 1969, at the trapped, garbage fires Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich lit. That night, the LGBTQ community to remember the struggles that brought Village, . Prior to this – with trans women of color in the us here, and we march as a reminder that moment in time, being LGBTQ in the U.S. vanguard – made a stand, and that we are not done fighting for equal rights. was a crime that was heavily policed. stand was the beginning Some Pride marches , as in this moving The better part of the 20th Century was of a revolution. account , have a moment of silence to an era when homosexuality was remember the millions of lives lost to the classified as a mental disorder, religious Pride Is Civil Rights: After the riots, AIDS Crisis, violence, and suicide. And institutions openly condemned LGBTQ word of mouth and media coverage while we most certainly celebrate our people, and anti-sodomy laws were quickly spread, and a sense of urgency individuality as well as our community’s took hold of the LGBTQ community: achievements, notice that we generally the time was now. Established LGBTQ use the word march. At its core, Pride is groups increased their protest a protest. Then, as it is now, marching in efforts, while numerous grassroots full view down your city street with pride organizations (e.g., the Gay Liberation in your true self, in the face of so much Front and Gay Activists Alliance) took a opposition, is a radical act.

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