Growing up in San Francisco means I ’ve always had the privilege of being immersed in all thing superbia . Rainbow flags wave year - rhythm in and beyond the city ’s Castro district , and I ’ve never know a June that was n’t wholly consecrated to prepping for the metropolis ’s massive Pride Parade , celebrating theLGBTQ+community .
But it ’s safe to say this tiny 49 - square - mi ( 127 - square - kilometer ) house of cards I live in is a unique space for acceptance and equation ; the right wing to carry pride in non - heterosexual love is n’t vouch in most parts of the world , but the movement has come a farseeing way since its inception more than 50 years ago .
The Stonewall Riots
This go down off a full public violence as the bunch develop , and 10 police officer block off themselves inside the Inn . The bunch set up the barricade on fire , and while the officers were rescued , the riot ensue for six more day . K of citizenry take part in demonstrations outside the bar to show support to the iconic LGBTQ+ initiation that serve and offered comfort to a persecuted community .
The Stonewall Riots , as they ’re now fuck , kick off a revolution within the community — member were no longer willing to sit by silently as they were treat like 2d class citizens .
A few months after the events atStonewall , activist Craig Rodell and his better half Fred Sargeant , along with Ellen Brody and Linda Rhodes , pop the question a result at Philadelphia ’s Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations ( ERCHO ) to hold a commemorative day of remembrance Mar the following year , on the last Saturday of June .
The First Pride Parade
have intercourse then as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March , the first pride parade was a mathematical group movement , largelyled by militant Brenda Howard . The outspoken New Yorker help spread the Logos and also suggested turn the one - day event into a calendar week - foresighted celebration .
The use of " superbia " as the upshot ’s slogan add up courtesy of planning committee member L. Craig Schoonmaker . As he said in a2015 interviewin The Allusionist , " A peck of people were very repressed , they were run afoul internally , and did n’t do it how to follow out and be lofty . That ’s how the movement was most utile , because they think , ' perchance I should be proud . ' " The official chant for the march became , " Say it loud , gay is proud . "
The first superbia consequence scarce resembled the colorful , joyous celebrations that take place today . In a 2010 piece for the Village Voice , Sargeant write that there were " no ice-cream soda , no medicine , no boys in briefs . "
Instead , they held augury and banner , and chanted : ' Say it clear , say it garish . Gay is good , gay is lofty . ' This was long before anyone had heard of a ' Gay Pride March . ' Back then , it lead a novel good sense of audacity and braveness to take that giant whole tone into the streets of Midtown Manhattan .
The gay pridefulness parade as we know it today more tight resemble events that took home outside of New York . The daylight before the Christopher Street Liberation Day March , Chicago commemorated the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots with a celebration of speech , terpsichore and shop that lasted a week .
And on the same daytime as New Yorkers marched , members of the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ community held the first city - O.K. pride parade , and militant in San Francisco exhibit through the streets as well . Two years later , SF held its first official paradewith 2,000 marchers and 15,000 spectators .
Within a decade of those first historical result , most major urban center in the United States were holding their own superbia parades , and metropolises around the ball followed suit .
accord to organizer and player , the larger - than - biography floats , colourful costume , and all - out unbridled joy evident in these event are central to their role : to authorize members of the LGBTQ+ community to feel free , safe and equal , even though the fighting for those rights still continues .
New York , Chicago and San Francisco continue to record the result at Stonewall the last weekend of June , while Los Angeles kicks off festivities earlier in the calendar month .
On the national level , President Bill Clinton declared June Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in 1999 , and while George W. Bush rent the tradition slip , President Barack Obama reinstate the official declaration during each year of his governing body and established theStonewall National Monumentin 2016 , a 7.7 - acre ( 3.11 - hectare ) expanse around the Stonewall Inn that is now the rural area ’s first LGBTQ+ interior park .
