Pride Month 2024
History of Pride
The Stonewall Riots weren’t the first time that LGBTQ+ people stood up against police harassment — before Stonewall, there was a riot in Los Angeles at Cooper Do-Nuts, and in San Francisco at Compton’s Cafeteria.
But Stonewall is definitely the best-known, and led to the creation of what we know as Pride today.
It started with a police raid on a hot summer night in Greenwich Village. (June 28, 1969)
Cops stormed the Stonewall Inn, arresting patrons and forcing them into waiting police vehicles. But a nearby crowd grew restless and angry, and eventually someone — there’s debate over who — started whipping onlookers into fighting back. They pelted the police, forcing homophobic cops to retreat, and aggressive street confrontations continued over the next few nights.
Following the Stonewall Riots, organizers wanted to build on that spirit of resistance. The following year, they organized a march to Central Park, and adopted the theme of “Gay Pride” as a counterpoint to the prevailing attitude of shame.
That march down Christopher Street soon expanded to other cities, with many more joining in year over year through the 1970s until Pride became the massive celebration that we know today.
Matt Baume (2020) What Is Pride Month and the History of Pride?, Available at: https://www.them.us/story/the-complete-history-of-pride (Accessed: 19/05/2021).
55 years on Pride is seen as a celebration but it’s important to remember that it started out as a riot.
Also, it is often overlooked but the involvement of transgender people, drag queens, and people of colour in the Stonewall Riots is undeniable.
Pictured here are Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, two drag queens who are seen as instrumental in both the Stonewall Riots and in the activism they did within the community. Together they formed the “Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR)” a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women.
Before the Stonewall Riots, police raids on LGBTQ+ bars and clubs were a regular occurrence.
It was the continued harassment of LGBTQ+ people, and their resistance that eventually led to the riots at the Stonewall Inn.
This then became a catalyst for the campaign for LGBTQ+ rights in parts of the western world, although it was many years before the legal rights of LBTQ+ people started to change.
Indeed, even in the western world, there are many legal rights that LGBTQ+ people do not have and there are still many battles to be fought for those rights.
“We have to do it because we can no longer stay invisible. We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are.”
Sylvia Rivera
