History of Pride Month

LIAM KARABO JOYCE

LIKE most things in life, change happens when the masses take to the streets. Freedom in South Africa came after a long struggle that saw many go to the streets protesting against a repressive government. The Arab Spring saw citizens in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain take to the streets. Black Americans fought for freedom on the streets. And in the same way, so has the LGBTQIA+ community.

And as all life-changing moments in history are celebrated, June is a celebration of queerness in all its forms. With it being Pride Month, it is a time where members and allies get to celebrate their true authentic self and reflect on the bravery of those before them.

LGBTQIA+ pride is the promotion of the equality, self-affirmation, dignity and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual people as a social group.

The 1950s and 1960s in the US was an extremely repressive legal and social period for queer people. In this context American homophile organisations such as the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society co-ordinated some of the earliest demonstrations of the modern queer rights movement. These two organisations in particular carried out pickets called “Annual Reminders” to inform and remind Americans that queer people did not receive basic civil rights protection. They began in 1965 and took place on July 4 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

The anti-queer discourse of these times equated both male and female homosexuality with mental illness. Inspired by Stokely Carmichael’s Black is Beautiful, gay civil rights pioneer and participant in the Annual

CAPE Town Pride in February 2020. | AYANDA NDAMANE African News Agency (ANA)

Reminders, Frank Kameny, originated the slogan Gay is Good in 1968 to counter social stigma and personal feelings of guilt and shame.

Early on the morning of Saturday, June 28, 1969, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people rioted after a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York. This riot and further protests were the watershed moments in the modern queer rights movement and the impetus for organising LGBTQIA+ pride marches on a much larger public scale.

On November 2, 1969, Craig Rodwell, his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, and Linda Rhodes proposed that the first pride march be held in New York City. The march took place in 1970, the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

The term "Gay Pride" was crafted by Thom Higgins, a gay rights activist in Minnesota. Ranging from solemn to carnivalesque, pride events are typically held during Pride Month or some other period that commemorates a turning point in a country’s queer history. Just last year the South African queer community celebrated the 30th anniversary of the first-ever Pride March held in October 1990 in Johannesburg.