( How the Stonewall uprising ignited the modern LGBTQ rights movement.) Stonewall sparks a movementĭespite the rampant homophobia of the early 20th century, the LGBTQ community had made itself visible before. cities in 1970 were raucous celebrations of identity-and a provocative peek at the decades of activism to follow. Now known as the first Pride parades, the gay liberation marches that took place in New York and other U.S. In Stonewall’s wake, thousands of LGBTQ people took to the street to demand their civil rights. “Coming out” came with threats of violence and social ostracism.īut that changed in the aftermath of the 1969 Stonewall uprising-when a group of LGBTQ people rioted in response to a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. For centuries, homosexuality had been stigmatized, criminalized, and persecuted. Their skepticism was for good reason: Until 1969, the thought of a large group of LGBTQ people celebrating their sexual orientation in public was unthinkable.
“The idea … made them laugh wildly,” recalled D’Emilio during an oral history collected by OutHistory. When John D’Emilio heard a group of LGBTQ activists would be marching in the streets of New York in June 1970, he told his boyfriend and several of his gay friends.
