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Getting everyone together for the Stonewall anniversary march proved to be a challenge. In October 1969, Time magazine’s story, “The Homosexual in America,” described six “homosexual types,” including the “blatant” homosexual recognizable as the “catty hairdresser,” or the “lisping, limp-wristed interior decorator.” The “homosexual subculture,” the article stated, “is without question shallow and unstable.” That November, our group protested outside the Time-Life building. While we pushed ahead to organize the march, we were also forced to confront the negative press that continued after the Stonewall riots. The bookshop became the intersection for the newly formed Gay Liberation Front, Gay Activists Alliance, the Lavender Menace, and some of the “student homophile leagues” popping up on college campuses. All over the city, people were holding similar meetings, all of us seeking a way to channel this explosion of energy. In the weeks following Craig’s return from Philadelphia, we had meetings with other gay groups at the Oscar Wilde and in our Bleecker Street apartment. This physical act confirmed for Craig that we needed something much bigger and bolder than the Mattachine Society. When Craig returned from Philadelphia, he was blistering over an incident: Washington Mattachine’s Frank Kameny told two women holding hands that there would be “none of that” and broke them apart.
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By the time Craig left New York a few days after the Stonewall Riots for the 1969 Reminder (it was to be the last), we had already discussed moving the annual event to New York. We were supposed to be unthreatening.Īs a young member of the Mattachine Society, Craig had originated this idea, but it was quickly taken over by older, conservative Required dress on men was jackets and ties for women, only dresses. Since 1965, a small, polite group of gays and lesbians had been picketing outside Liberty Hall. Before Stonewall, gay leaders had primarily promoted silent vigils and polite pickets, such as the “Annual Reminder” in Philadelphia. What guaranteed its eventual success, however, was the transformation of the gay movement itself. As the first gay bookshop in the country, we amassed something that proved to be invaluable for organizing a march: our mailing list. Craig and I had both participated in Stonewall, and the Oscar Wilde soon became Information Central. After we became partners, we ran the shop together. Craig had opened the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on Christopher Street in 1967-two years before Stonewall. No one was more responsible for conceiving and organizing that first march on the last Sunday in June than Craig Rodwell. The cops turned their backs on us to convey their disdain, but the masses of people kept carrying signs and banners, chanting and waving to surprised onlookers. There were no floats, no music, no boys in briefs.
![first gay pride parade was after a riot first gay pride parade was after a riot](https://wfuv.org/sites/default/files/AP_710627034.jpg)
I was astonished we stretched out as far as I could see, thousands of us. I stayed at the head of the march the entire way, and at one point, I climbed onto the base of a light pole and looked back. Finally, we began to move up Sixth Avenue. One by one, we encouraged people to join the assembly. This was long before anyone had heard of a “Gay Pride March.” Back then, it took a new sense of audacity and courage to take that giant step into the streets of Midtown Manhattan. We wondered if we would be able to get them to move off the curb. And now, here we were, June 28, 1970, with people gathered west of Sixth Avenue at Waverly Place. We weren’t even certain we would be granted a permit. One year after the Stonewall Riots galvanized New York’s fearful gay men and lesbians into fighters, a handful of us planned our first march.