And so it began.įollowing the lead banner-"CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY LIBERATION DAY 1970"-representatives from various groups, cities, schools, and all different walks of life stepped off the sidewalk and into the street: Gay Liberation Front, Gay Activists Alliance, Mattachine-NY, D.C.
"There weren't many at first," but they came, "drifting out, massing out at the last moment as if they were watching to see if the others were going to show." At 2:10, the NYPD-there to protect the queers-insisted they get going. With the march set to start at 2:00 p.m., it seemed as if the committee hadn't even been able to turn out a thousand people. Of the ambitious Gay Pride Week events planned by Brenda Howard and the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee, only Friday's dance at NYU's Weinstein Hall was well attended. In the excerpt below, they recount the first New York City Pride march, which then was called the Christopher Street Liberation Day March.Ĭraig Rodwell got to Sheridan Square early on June 28, 1970, not knowing what to expect with just hours before the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March. In We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation, Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown, the creators and curators of the groundbreaking Instagram account combine exhaustive research with more than 300 meticulously curated photographs to offer a rich and sweeping photographic history of the LGBT rights movement.