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Craig Rodwell and his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, Michael Brown, Marty Nixon, and Foster Gunnison Jr. At first there was difficulty getting some of the major New York City organizations like Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) to send representatives.
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Meetings to organize the march began in early January at Rodwell's apartment in 350 Bleecker Street. Members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) attended the meeting and were seated as guests of Rodwell's group, Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN). Īll attendees to the ERCHO meeting in Philadelphia voted for the march except for Mattachine Society of New York, which abstained. We also propose that we contact Homophile organizations throughout the country and suggest that they hold parallel demonstrations on that day. No dress or age regulations shall be made for this demonstration. We propose that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street and this demonstration be called CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY. On November 2, 1969, Craig Rodwell, his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, and Linda Rhodes proposed an annual march to be held in New York City by way of a resolution at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) meeting in Philadelphia. In the weeks following the riots, 500 people gathered for a "Gay Power" demonstration in Washington Square Park, followed by a march to Sheridan Square. Veterans of the riot formed a group, the Stonewall Veterans Association, which has continued to drive the advancement of LGBT rights from the rioting at the Stonewall Inn, to the present day.
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This event, together with further protests and rioting over the following nights, marked a watershed moment in the modern LGBT rights movement and the impetus for organizing LGBT pride marches on a much larger scale.
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It’s especially contentious in New York City, where in 1969 a series of violent confrontations between the NYPD and patrons of the Stonewall Inn, the Stonewall Riots, ushered in a new era in the fight for LGBTQ rights.Button promoting the second annual pride march in 1971.Įarly on the morning of Saturday, June 28, 1969, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people rioted, following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar at 53 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan. Last year, five people at the Reclaim Pride Coalition march were arrested during a clash with the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, heavily armed cops who respond to violent protests throughout the city.Scores were injured and maced by SRG officers as cops tried to arrest a marcher who vandalized a police vehicle near Washington Square Park, where last year’s parade ended, said Jay Walker, an organizer for the Reclaim Pride Coalition march.Īcross the country, the relationship between law enforcement and members of the LGBTQ community has been historically volatile. “Of course, at the end of last year’s march, we were set upon by the NYPD strategic response group, which quite literally had laid in wait for our march to end, and then attacked us over a ridiculous thing of somebody writing on the back of a police car parked at our endpoints for no good reason,” Walker said. Organizers estimated that around 50,000 protesters attended the COVID-era Queer March, another successful event but one that ended in a violent clash with police. A demonstration that focused on the “many murders of especially Black and Brown trans women all over the country.” “We had to turn on a dime, and said, ‘You know what? We’re out here marching every day, we have to do a march this year, and the march has to be the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives Against Police Brutality,” said Walker. Since the coalition is formed by members fighting against police and state oppression across various segments of society, many of them were already on the streets joining Black Lives Matter protests - which led organizers to rethink their virtual-only demonstration. Hundreds of protesters walk during the Queer Liberation march.