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No more shame, the organizers declared they should and must be proud of who they are. In fact, they reasoned, they needed to project a feeling just the opposite of what they had been hiding under. They saw no reason to be ashamed, saw no need to hide who they were. The cloud of the shame that the LGBTQ+ community had been forced to live under for so many decades was a subject many in the community felt needed to be addressed. The small demonstration soon evolved into a large parade combining both protest and celebration.Īlong the way, as organizers put together the event, meaning and purpose were debated. This march was organized by groups such as the Mattachine Society, Gay Activist Alliance, and the Gay Liberation Front. The march would initially be called “Christopher Street Liberation Day,” naming the day after the street where The Stonewall Inn is located. This march would protest the civil rights abuses and the marginalization of the members of the LGBTQ+ community. Over the following year, activists proposed a longer, annual march. Spirits were still high, and the fight was still in people’s hearts. In the weeks and months following the Stonewall riots and the march to central park, LGBTQ+ organizers noticed something remarkable: the spirit of the June 28 event, the need for freedom, recognition, and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community was not waning.
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Accept no one's definition of your life define yourself. Never allow yourself to be made a victim.
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The theme of this original march to Central Park was “Gay Power.” The Gay Pride Parade A movement was happening, the energy and excitement spread, and it soon became too powerful to ignore. More cities joined the protests against oppression and ignorance while celebrating the uniqueness and rightful place of LGBTQ+ people all through the 1970s. This first march, down Christoper Street, was soon adopted by other gay communities in other cities. This march was inspired by the events at Stonewall, where the gay community finally found the courage to say enough and stood in the streets fighting their oppressors the community threw off the yoke of shame and stood, as they should, proud of who they were. One year after the Stonewall riots, organizers in New York City staged a march to Central Park. What followed the riots was organizations building on the spirit of resistance, the shedding of the perceived shame of being LGBTQ+, and raising what was to be a new cultural movement. There had been protests before, in Los Angeles at Copper Do-Nuts, in San Francisco at Compton’s Cafeteria, but that June night at the Stonewall was the one that stays in our memories as it caused the start of something truly remarkable. History would also note that these events marked the first significant step to the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement. History would later call this time the Stonewall riots. The days that followed were marked by violent protests against the police and physical altercations in the streets. Someone, to this day no one knows who, began to whip up the crowd, and the enraged mob forced the homophobic police to retreat and leave the area.
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Tired of being persecuted for who they loved and how they lived their lives, they fought back. When the raid became violent, when people were beaten with clubs and flung into waiting paddy wagons, the onlookers had hit their breaking point. However, this June night, something changed. The police vice squads had been raiding and harassing gay and lesbian patrons in the area for a long time. This kind of action was not new to the people in the area, patrons of other Village gay and lesbian bars. In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the New York City Police Department executed a raid on the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village section of New York City.