Celebrate Pride Month

June is Pride Month, a month focused on the visibility of LGBTQ+ people and celebrating movement toward equality.  June was chosen to celebrated Pride to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising, often considered the start of the modern LGBTQ+ civil rights movement.

In the 1960's, in many cities, including New York, bars could lose their liquor license for simply serving gay patrons.  A 1967 New York Court of Appeals decision opened bars to gay patrons, but bars could still lose their liquor license if patrons engaged in "disorderly conduct".  Given that homosexuality was still criminalized, law enforcement interpreted "disorderly conduct" to mean same sex kissing, holding hands or dancing.  In response, the Mafia opened private bottle clubs, including the Stonewall Inn, which did not require a liquor license because patrons were supposed to bring their own liquor.

In the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn and arrested 13 people, including employees for bootleg liquor and patrons for violating the state's gender-appropriate clothing statute.  Patrons who refused to disburse and neighborhood residents became increasingly agitated as patrons were aggressively manhandled by police, sparking violence by the bystanders.  Protests, sometimes violent, continued over the next six days, sometimes involving several thousand people.  The protests received almost no news coverage but were a catalyst for organizing for LGBTQ+ rights.  Within a year of Stonewall, LGBTQ+ rights organizations rose from about 50 in 1968 to over 1000 organizations.  

The first gay Pride parade was held in New York City in 1970 to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising.  The term "Pride" was coined by Craig Schoonmaker, one of the organizers of the parade "not as a slogan so much as an understanding that people should be proud and not ashamed".  Pride parades are now held throughout the world, with 5 million people attending the 2019 WorldPride parade in New York City.

In 2016, the Stonewall Inn and surrounding area were declared a National Monument. 

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Learn more about LGBTQ+ Civil Rights in the 1960s and early 1970’s:

• Listen to or read Remembering a 1966 'Sip-In' for Gay Rights
• Read How Liquor Licenses Sparked the Stonewall Riots
• Read The Forgotten History of Gay Entrapment
• Read The Same Sex Couple who got a Marriage License in 1971
• Watch our LWV ABC film club selection Before Stonewall (1984) currently available on Kanopy.
• Watch the documentary The Stonewall Uprising currently available for free viewing on PBS.
• Watch the National Park Service Series on the Stonewall National Monument (15 five minute videos)

 

Learn more about Pride Month:

• Read LGBTQ+ Pride Flags and What They Stand For
• Read the National Park Service Series Pride Through the Decades
• Listen to the Allusionist “Pride” Podcast or read the Allusionist “Pride” transcript to learn about the origins of the term.