The Stone Wall Of Pride ~ The History Of Pride by Jennifer Kate

Hey guys, it’s Jennifer from Slap Shots Fired here again with part two of a three-part series of LGBTQIA+ blogs I am writing. The first part was me telling my story. This is the second part where I talk about the history of Pride. The third part will be my experience at the NYC Pride Parade, which takes place on June 25th.

Let’s jump right into the History of Pride, which started on June 28th, 1969, after a police raid took place within the Stonewall Inn. After that police raid, another piece of history was made when the members of the LGBTQIA+ community started protesting against the police raid, which became widely known as the Stonewall Riots. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the 20th-century fight for LGBTQIA+ rights in the United States.

A year after the uprising, to mark the anniversary on June 28, 1970, the first gay pride marches took place in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the US and the world.

Today, LGBTQIA+ Pride events are held annually in June in honor of the Stonewall Riots. Here’s a little fun fact for you: it took 30 years for Pride Month to become official through a proclamation from then-U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1999.

Pride Month started as a riot against police brutality at a small dive bar in New York City called the Stonewall Inn. At the time, some laws suggested a male or a female must be wearing a certain number of clothing items that matched the gender on their state-issued identification. The police took advantage of these laws to raid drinking establishments and arrest transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.

Just after midnight on June 28, 1969, the police raided the Stonewall Inn like they had many times before. Only, this time, something unusual happened: Stonewall customers fought back.

Now if I’m being honest I haven’t had much personal experience with Pride events yet, but I know many people who have and I’m excited to experience pride for myself. The historical significance of Pride just proves further why we need better laws to protect the LGBTQIA+ community.

Before I go ahead and wrap up this blog, I think I want to talk about one more important part of Pride, which in my personal opinion has a very underrated story.

In 1978, what is perhaps the most recognized symbol of Gay Pride made its debut at the San Francisco event: the rainbow flag. The flag, with its eight colors symbolized sexuality by hot pink, life by red, healing by orange, the Sun by yellow, nature by green, art by blue, harmony by indigo, and spirit by violet, was designed by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker and has been adopted worldwide.

The following year, a six-color flag, which is in common use today, appeared with red, orange, yellow, green, and blue harmony, replacing art as symbolized by blue in the flag, and purple/violet, partially because of the unavailability of some of the fabric colors.