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How Did ‘Pride’ Advance to Represent the LGBTQ+ Movement?
How did the word 'Pride' come to illustrate the LGBTQ+ movement?
More than three decades before June's annual celebration became official, the concept of "gay pride" had already emerged within the LGBTQ+ society. As early as 1966, a organization had adopted the acronym P.R.I.D.E., which stood for Personal Rights In Defense and Education. The terms "gay pride" and "gay power" were also influenced by the civil rights movement’s language of "Black pride" and "Black power." Several people include claimed to hold coined the word "gay pride," including activist Thom Higgins.
During planning for preliminary LGBTQ+ marches, organizers debated which slogan to adopt. Activist L. Craig Schoonmaker championed the phrase, explaining that while not everyone has power, anyone can have pride—a feeling of self-worth that can drive modify and reject stigma. “Say it noisy, gay is proud” became a rallying cry for some, though it took years for the word to grow the dominant phrase for LGBTQ+ events.
How did June become Pride Month?
Activists held the first Gay Event Parade in N
The Supreme Court Rulings That Have Shaped Gay Rights in America
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) was established in 1789, but it didn't rule on a case that directly influenced queer rights until nearly 170 years later. Since then, the highest federal court in the country has weighed in on about a dozen other LGBTQ rights-related cases, which own had powerful impacts on the gay rights movement and the lives of LGBTQ Americans.
The Supreme Court's First Gay Rights Case
SCOTUS's first gay rights case focused on the First Amendment—specifically, how the rights of free speech and press apply to gay content.
In 1954, Los Angeles' postmaster Otto Olesen ordered federal postal authorities to seize ONE, a lesbian magazine (the nation's first), arguing that the magazine's content was "obscene."
One, Inc., the magazine's publisher, sued Olesen. A lower court ruled in favor of the government and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with this ruling.
However, SCOTUS took up One, Inc. v. Olesen in 1958 and dominated in favor of One, Inc. with little comment, citing only its recent decision in Roth v. Un As was frequent practice in many cities, the New York Police Department would occasionally raid bars and restaurants where gays and lesbians were known to gather. This occurred on June 28, 1969, when the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. When the police aggressively dragged patrons and employees out of the exclude, several people fought assist against the NYPD, and a growing crowd of angry locals gathered in the streets. The confrontations quickly escalated and sparked six days of protests and violent clashes with the NYPD outside the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street and throughout the neighborhood. By the time the Stonewall Riots ended on July 2, 1969, the gay rights movement went from being a fringe issue largely ignored by politicians and the media to front-page news worldwide. One year later, during the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, activists in New York City marched through the streets of Manhattan in commemoration of the uprising. The march, organized by the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) and the Christopher Street Liberation Day Umbre It’s not uncommon to observe rainbow flags flying outside of homes and bars, pinned to shirts and on the advocate of bumpers—all with the proclamation that #LoveIsLove. But who created the rainbow flag, and why did it grow a symbol of the LGBTQ+ community? The rainbow flag was created in 1978 by artist, creator, Vietnam War veteran and then-drag artist, Gilbert Baker. He was commissioned to create a flag by another male lover icon, politician Harvey Milk, for San Francisco’s annual self-acceptance parade. The decision to enlist Baker proved serendipitous, as the idea of a flag to portray the gay and lesbian community had occurred to him two years earlier. As Baker told the Museum of Modern Art during a 2015 interview, he had been inspired by the celebrations marking America’s bicentennial in 1976, noting that the constant display of stars and stripes made him see the cultural necessitate for a similar rallying sign for the gay group. And as a struggling drag actor who was accustomed to creating his own garments, he was well-equipped to sew the soon-to-be iconic symbol. At the time, the most commonly used image for the burgeoning g On a Friday night in February 1926, a crowd of some 1,500 packed the Renaissance Casino in Novel York City’s Harlem neighborhood for the 58th masquerade and civil ball of Hamilton Lodge. Nearly half of those attending the event, reported the New York Age, appeared to be “men of the class generally known as ‘fairies,’ and many Bohemians from the Greenwich Village section who...in their gorgeous evening gowns, wigs and powdered faces were hard to distinguish from many of the women.” The tradition of masquerade and civil balls, more commonly known as drag balls, had begun back in 1869 within Hamilton Lodge, a inky fraternal organization in Harlem. By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibition era, they were attracting as many as 7,000 people of various races and social classes—gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight alike. Stonewall (1969) is often considered the launch of forward progress in the gay rights movement. But more than 50 years earlier, Harlem’s renowned drag balls were part of a flourishing, highly visible LGBTQ nightlife and culture that would be integrated into mainstream American life i
Pride Month 2025
First Gay Pride Parade
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