A colorful history of LGBTQ pride in America

A colorful history of LGBTQ Pride in America - Pride Month is upon us, but the gay pride movement is much more than a series of parades and eccentric outfits that burst from the seams of society in the month of June. From the Stonewall riots to assassinations of political figures, there are many key moments in American history that have spurred this movement of liberation and equality on to become the joyous occasion that people now partake in worldwide. Check out this gallery to learn more about the tumultuous ride of the LGBTQ in the US.

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The defining moment: Stonewall riots - On June 28, 1969, police raided a known New York City gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, consequently spurring on a series of spontaneous demonstrations against the police. The event is often cited as the beginning of the gay liberation movement.

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The first pride marches happened the following year - New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco all held marches in June of 1970 to commemorate the Stonewall riots—New York named the event Christopher Street Liberation Day after the location of the Stonewall Inn—and the movement has claimed the month of June ever since.

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It started with a much smaller turnout - Only 30 people marched down San Francisco's Polk Street in 1970, according to San Francisco Curbed. Last year, well over a million people were in attendance.

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It has changed in numbers and purpose - The march began as a purely political demonstration to demand equal rights for LGBTQ, but it now has the freedom to also celebrate the queer life that the movement seeks to protect.

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Before the pride parade, there was Harry Hay - In the suffocating age of the '50s, Hay founded America's first successful gay liberation organization, Mattachine Society, and his ideas would soon become the guiding principles of the American gay rights movement.

(Photo: Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Pride didn't always have the rainbow flag - In 1978, nearly a decade after the Stonewall Riots, Gilbert Baker created the iconic rainbow flag.

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Gilbert Baker - Born in Kansas, Baker, an openly gay man, first felt at home in San Francisco in the '70s, where he traded the historic pink triangle—used by Nazis to identify homosexuals in concentration camps—with the much needed replacement of a beautiful rainbow.

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The flag's colors each held meaning - Hot pink stood for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, turquoise blue for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit. The hot pink and turquoise stripes were dropped in 1979, leaving the flag as we know it today.

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Creating history - The first rainbow flag was raised on June 25, 1978, in the United Nations Plaza during San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade. Twenty-five years later, Baker also created the world's longest rainbow flag, measuring 8,000 ft long by 16 ft wide, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic coast in Florida. Baker's legacy lived on, along with the man who encouraged him to create the flag in the first place: Harvey Milk.

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Harvey Milk - As the first openly gay man elected to public office in the US, Milk's influence was felt far and wide. He's often credited with the rapid rise of pride parade attendees, as he made the LGBTQ community feel heard by the government. He also made significant legal differences, like defeating California's Proposition 6, which would have banned LGBTQ members from working in public schools.

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Milk's words live on - In one of his famous speeches, he said, "Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets … We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out."

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The assassination of Harvey Milk - In a devastating hit to the pride movement, and soon after the unveiling of the rainbow flag, Milk and former San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were both assassinated by former Supervisor Dan White at City Hall. White was outraged that the mayor would not reappoint him to the Board of Supervisors—after White himself had resigned—and he was equally discontent with Milk's lobbying against his reappointment.

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The infamous "Twinkie defense" - White's lawyers tried to blame his increasingly sugary diet for the murder, and it sort of worked. The jury convicted White of manslaughter instead of murder, meaning he would only serve six years in prison. News spread, people got angry (the White Night Riots abounded), and White committed suicide one year after being released from prison.

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Milk continues to be honored as an integral part of the pride movement - In 2003, San Francisco's Pride Parade theme was a famous quote of Milk's: "You've gotta give them hope."

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Presidential support has ebbed and flowed - In 1993, the year Bill Clinton was inaugurated into office, marchers in New York City's Pride Parade protested his health reform, calling him out on his broken promises.

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The people marched against Bill Clinton, and he heard them - The former president was the first to issue a Proclamation for Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in 1999.

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Barack Obama was a big supporter - Former President Barack Obama issued proclamations for Pride Month every year he was in office. His eloquent 2016 proclamation praised the Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage in the year prior, condemned conversion therapy, and urged Congress to continue building legislation that protects the rights of the LGBTQ community.

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The change in current leadership - President Donald Trump has yet to acknowledge Pride Month on Twitter, much less make a formal proclamation. When the leader of the country works closely with someone that supports conversion therapy, has nominated anti-LGBTQ federal judges, tried to reinstate a ban on transgender military service members, and essentially fired everyone on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, there are obvious obstacles thrust in front of a movement like pride.

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But the movement continues to inspire - Though pride parades in New York City and San Francisco remain the largest in the country, the events have inspired many other marches and contingencies to come forward over the years.

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Dyke march - Pride parades were the essential first crack in the glass ceiling for many LGBTQ groups that were able to smash through it, including the dyke march. Led largely by lesbians, the first nationwide dyke march took place in Washington, D.C., in 1993. Now many other cities hold their own dyke marches during Pride Month.

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Leather community - This contingent consists of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and pansexual leather and BDSM groups, and they've been parading around in leather outfits since before this picture from 1980.

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Alternate parades and conflicting ideas within the movement - Last year, Los Angeles' Pride replaced its traditional parade with #ResistMarch, a protest against the complacent celebration of past successes and a movement towards securing human rights for everyone.

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#BlackOutPride - Tensions arose at the 2015 Chicago Pride festival when #BlackOutPride protesters temporarily stopped the parade for a 10 minute sit-in where they brought attention to the Black Lives Matter movement and the marginalized communities that often get left out of LGBTQ conversations. Intersectionality continues to be an increasing concern for the LGBTQ community, and though it has come a long way, it has miles to go.

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No Justice No Pride - In 2017, the activist group No Justice No Pride also disrupted a pride march in Washington, D.C., where they demanded that uniformed law enforcement be removed from the procession, while the pride organizers insisted police be included, Vox reports.

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The inclusion of police continues to be hotly debated - It's a well-known fact that LGBTQ people, particularly those of color, are more likely to be thrown into the criminal justice system, so their presence makes many feel uncomfortable and unsafe.

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The rocky relationship with police has come a long way - In the mid-1900s, raids on gay bars were frequent and it didn't take much for a transgender person to be arrested. At this time the police were feared by the LGBTQ community instead of trusted.

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It has a long way to go - With the issue of police brutality coming to the forefront in these past few years, police are often asked to attend unarmed and not in uniform as a sign of the commitment to the work that has yet to be completed, Vox reports.

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The celebrations are often tainted with mourning - The 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando killed 49, injured 53, and shook the entire nation and pride movement to the bone. Similar to the year of Harvey Milk's assassination, pride celebrations have been known to incorporate vigils and protests to honor those who have lost their lives along the way, and protest the injustices that took those lives.

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Pride remembers as it moves forward each year - The movement protests through in-your-face actions like this staged die-in during the 2016 San Francisco Pride Parade, which put the disproportionately dangerous reality of LGBTQ lives on display.

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In other news, there's a real drag race - Miami's 2013 Gay Pride Parade featured a high heel race, where drag queens had to wear heels no less than three inches tall and bolt as fast as they could for a cash prize. Even RuPaul's Drag Race wouldn't make its queens do that!

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The signs are also getting more creative every year - Asking all the hard questions.

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Want to know more about pride around the world? - Check out this gallery to the see the world's biggest Pride celebrations.

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