For one day, we were victorious against the Ed Davises of the world, and no one seemed “discommoded” in the least.įormer owner of Lambda Rising and organizer of Washington’s first Pride events in 1975 Crowds 10 deep cheered as we raucously urged them to join us.
Homemade floats featured Vaseline jars and a crucified queer man. Chanting gay liberation slogans, we wore Halloween costumes, our best drag, tie-dye T-shirts, or almost nothing. With last-minute court approval, on June 28 at 7 p.m., a motley group clocking in at exactly 1,169 folks stepped off joyously from Hollywood and Vine. Legal or not, Davis could not stop a new militant identity on the rise. He then slapped on several seemingly insurmountable impediments, such as million-dollar liability bonds.
march would “discommode the public” and that he’d have to allow “thieves and burglars” to parade next. Davis, the police chief and a man of antiquated views and diction, told our organizing committee in early June that a L.G.B.T. It was a near miracle that the first Christopher Street West Parade in Los Angeles kicked off at all on June 28, 1970. As my friend Jerry Hoose used to say about that year, “we went from the shadows to sunlight.” Today, my original marshal’s badge is on display in the Smithsonian.Įarly member of the Gay Liberation Front and Radicalesbians and co-organizer of the first marches in New York and Los Angeles Eventually we made it to Central Park, just like we had promised - and us activists transformed a movement from a few ragtag militants to thousand strong. When we reached 23rd Street, I climbed up a pole, looked back and saw a crowd stretch all the way to Christopher Street.
As a marshal, I especially had to know how to react and control the marchers if we were attacked. So we held self-defense classes and learned how to protect ourselves. We didn’t have a police permit, so no one knew exactly what would happen - no one knew the type of force that might greet us. We intended to march from Greenwich Village and up to Central Park. The march was a reflection of us: out, loud and proud. The Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day March was as revolutionary and chaotic as everything we did that first year after the Stonewall riots. Early member of the Gay Liberation Front and marshal of the first Pride march