Many know about the Stonewall Uprising that happened in Manhattan starting on June 28, 1969. Queer people from New York fought back against police who had raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. The moment was integral in launching the modern LGBTQ+-rights movement in the United States.
A year later, groups across the country held protest marches
commemorating the uprising—these would become the annual Pride parades today.
But many in the LGBTQ+ community don’t know is that, a year later, Chicago was the site of the first Pride Parade commemorating the uprising. Activist Gary Chichester said he is working to cement Chicago in LGBTQ+ history and “set the record straight.”
Chichester was one of over 150 participants in the march remembering the Stonewall Uprising hosted by the Gay Liberation Front back in June 27, 1970. He welcomed a crowd of over two dozen in Chicago’s Washington Square Park on June 28 to mark the 55th anniversary of what he said was the world’s first Pride rally and march.
“A lot of times the East Coast and the West Coast put us down. They ignore us because we’re too nice for them, I guess,” he said. “We’re here now, and it’s time to reclaim our history and to set the record straight.”
New York City had a vital role in sparking the LGBTQ+ rights movement. In 2016, President Obama designated the site of the Stonewall Uprising a national historic landmark—the first in the U.S. to commemorate LGBTQ+ history.
New York’s Pride March happened on June 28th, 1970. Chicago did it a day earlier because they wanted to take the streets of Chicago on a busy Saturday instead.
“We wanted exposure,” Chichester said. Another participant devised a simple plan: “Well, let’s go over to Michigan Avenue, where all the
shoppers are out. Give them a view of their first faggot.”
The idea was radical for the time. Activist Richard Streetman thinks that the battles fought by members in the LGBTQ+ community like Chichester made way for younger generations like his to live more freely.“So much progress has been made thanks to Gary and [the late activist Vernita Gray] and so many of the people that were here on this day, 55 years ago,” Streetman said. “But none of that is written in stone.”
Streetman, Chichester and Yoni Pizer—U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley’s (IL-5) community liaison—have been at the forefront of making a landmark to commemorate Chicago’s history as the site of the world’s first Pride parade.
Streetman said the idea came in 2020 when the annual Pride Parade was cancelled. Many Chicagoans still marched that year starting in Washington Square Park and that’s when things “started brewing.”
Carlos Ramirez Rosa, who was Chicago’s first gay Latino alderperson and is now CEO of the Chicago Park District joined the June 28 kickoff for the campaign to establish a landmark for LGBTQ+ history.
“We’re looking to have a historical marker that really speaks to the
history of this place, particularly the recently uncovered history of
this park as the host of the first Pride March commemorating the
Stonewall uprising,” he said.
Ramirez-Rosa said now is the moment to protect members of the LGBTQ+ community through policy after there’s been a push at the federal level to erase the LGBTQ+ community.
In February, the Trump administration moved to exclude transgender folks from the Stonewall National Monument’s programming and returned a previous ban on transgender Americans enlisting in the military.
Pizer spoke out against even some Democrats abandoning transgender individuals.
“[Quigley] is committed to keeping Democrats on the right side of
history and exposing the heartlessness of anti-transgender policies,”
Pizer said.
Speakers that day also called out the recent Supreme Court rulings that limited gender-affirming care for transgender minors and another allowing parents to opt their children out of curriculum including LGBTQ+ rights.
While there’s no solid timeline yet for a landmark, Ramirez-Rosa said that “safeguarding memory” is another way he’s aiming to protect his community.
“Sometime in the future, when we’re all gone, a young gay kid or young lesbian kid or trans kid can come to this park and see a plaque there that tells the story of a community that has existed, will continue to exist, and continue the struggle towards freedom and liberation,” Ramirez-Rosa added.