PRIDE IS POLITICAL

LGBT Pride is an intercultural movement to celebrate the rights and dignities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other people in the LGBTQIA+ community. PRIDE is an acronym for Personal Rights in Defense and Education. The organization was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1966 by Steve Ginsburg. Pride has been a protest and a mark of the unforgettable history of continuous struggle for years by the queer community for their civil rights, equal justice, their dignities, and their deserved respect in society. Pride month and pride rallies occur to commemorate the Stonewall riot that occurred in June 1969. And hence pride events are held to mark the impact LGBTQ people had on the world and the accomplishments of the queer community.

THE STONEWALL RIOT

At a time when homosexual acts were deemed illegal and bars and restaurants were shut down for employing gays, a riot broke out at a bar which was a safe space for the queer community, called Stonewall Inn located in Greenwich, New York on a summer night of 1969 when the police raided the bar. Police raids at gay bars were a common incident during those times, but at this particular instance, the queer community decided to fight back and hence sparked an uprising marking the beginning of a new era of resistance and revolution. 

On Tuesday, June 24th, before the riots began, the police raided the bar and arrested a few employees, and confiscated illegal liquor. They targeted the bar and planned on shutting down the bar after a second raid on Friday. 

On the midnight of June 27th eight undercover police officers including six men and two women entered the bar and more NYPD officers arrived later along with a police van called paddy wagon and they began loading Stonewall employees and cross-dressers inside. Even though the exact details of what started the riots vary, witness reports state that the police roughed up a woman dressed in masculine attire, who some believe, was lesbian activist Stormé DeLarverie, and that led the crowd to erupt and scream insults at the officers and throw pennies and bottles at them and some even slashed the tires of the police vehicles. Supposedly the riots started with the homeless and those young gay people to whom the Stonewall was the only safe place in their lives. 

Close to 4 am on the morning of June 28, as the paddy wagon and police vehicles left to drop the prisoners off at the nearby Sixth Precinct, the mob forced the NYPD who raided the bar to retreat and barricade themselves inside the Stonewall. Rioters broke through the doors, threw beer bottles and other objects. The city’s riot police, the Tactical Patrol Force arrived and helmeted officers marched down Christopher Street but the protestors ran away, circled the blocks and came back up behind the officers. Things finally settled down after 4 am and there was no death or critical injuries on the first night of rioting.

                     Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images

Even after all the chaos, the Stonewall Inn opened before the next night and more supporters began gathering and chanting slogans of “gay power” and “we shall overcome”. Larger groups of police and TPF were called after that. The crowd finally dispersed in the early morning after being beaten and tears gassed by the cops.

Stonewall became a gathering point for LGBT activists. They spread awareness and information and in time fueled the growth of the gay rights movement. 

Riots started again when newspaper articles used homophobic, gay slurs and protestors gathered outside the newspaper offices and the police tried to stop them. 

Gay rights movement existed even before the Stonewall uprising, but the uprising did indeed cause a stir and the earlier homophile organizations like the Mattachine Society became more radical and led way to groups like the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA).

The gay activists in New York organized the Christopher Street Liberation March, the first Gay Pride Week, to mark the anniversary of the fateful night of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn. Thousands of supporters joined the march and this thus led to the Pride March held every year on June 28th and the Pride Month around the world. 

The Stonewall riots fueled activism around the world in many countries like Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand, and others. It sparked a revolution that continued for the next half-century and beyond. 

Even today Pride marks the sacrifices and the struggles of all the people who came before. Pride is political and always has been.