I already had a different post on the schedule for this morning when I realized that today is June 1, the beginning of Pride Month! Where have the first five months of this year gone??? Wasn’t it just Christmas a few weeks ago? So, rather than starting out the day with this post, which is a repeat of last year’s Pride Month post with some updates and modifications, I shall post it this afternoon and Part II will be tomorrow morning. I am deeply saddened by state legislatures across the United States that have been busily introducing and passing anti-LGBTQ bills this year. Thus far, not even halfway into the year, some 417 such bills have been introduced, more than twice as many as the previous year.
This is, in part, why I think shining a light on Pride Month is so, so important. We must remember that we are all the same in far more ways than we are different, that we are all in the fight for life together. We all have feelings, stengths & weaknesses, and nobody is ‘superior’ by virtue of the gender or colour.
With all the brouhaha over such ridiculous things as Bud Light featuring a trans person on cans of beer, Target selling Pride merchandise, religious leaders and politicians shouting anti-LGBTQ rhetoric at every turn, I fear this year’s Pride Month may be marred by disappointment and violence against the LGBTQ community. I hope I’m wrong. But learning about people is always a way to find more things we have in common, and that’s why I will keep posting these every June in hopes of reminding people that beneath it all, we are all just people.
My posts are usually geared toward socio-political issues such as racism & bigotry, politics, the environment, etc., but every now and then there is something that takes precedence over all those things — they will still be here tomorrow, right? This afternoon and tomorrow afternoon, I am dedicating Filosofa’s Word, as I have for the past three years, to Pride Month. Quick question: do you know what PRIDE stands for? I’m ashamed to say that I did not know until a few years ago that it stands for Personal Rights In Defense and Education. Makes perfect sense, don’t you think? The fight to be recognized and accepted has been an ongoing battle for decades, perhaps longer, and while we were making progress for a time, lately we seem to be regressing, thanks in large part to certain homophobic governors whose names do not deserve mention on this post. Check out the states that are pushing through new legislation this year against the LGBTQ community on the ACLU website.
The following is Part I of a post I wrote for PRIDE Month in 2019 and have reprised every year since. I don’t believe in re-inventing the wheel, and frankly when I read over this post, except for a few minor adjustments, I didn’t think I could do any better if I started over. Part II will be on the schedule for tomorrow. Meanwhile, to all my friends in the LGBTQ community … I wish you a heartfelt Happy PRIDE Month!
June is Pride Month, a month dedicated to recognizing the impact LGBTQ people have had in the world. I see Pride Month in much the same way I see February’s Black History Month. It is a way to honour or commemorate those who rarely receive the recognition they deserve, and are often discriminated against, simply because they are LGBTQ, or Black, in the case of Black History Month. A bit of history about the beginnings of Pride Month …
The Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, was owned by the Genovese crime family, and in 1966, three members of the Genovese family invested $3,500 to turn the Stonewall Inn into a gay bar, after it had been a restaurant and a nightclub for heterosexuals. Once a week a police officer would collect envelopes of cash as a payoff, as the Stonewall Inn had no liquor license and thus was operating outside the law. It was the only bar for gay men in New York City where dancing was allowed; dancing was its main draw since its re-opening as a gay club.
At 1:20 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1969, four plainclothes policemen in dark suits, two patrol officers in uniform, and Detective Charles Smythe and Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine arrived at the Stonewall Inn’s double doors and announced “Police! We’re taking the place!” Approximately 205 people were in the bar that night. Patrons who had never experienced a police raid were confused. A few who realized what was happening began to run for doors and windows in the bathrooms, but police barred the doors.
Standard procedure was to line up the patrons, check their identification, and have female police officers take customers dressed as women to the bathroom to verify their sex, upon which any men dressed as women would be arrested. Those dressed as women that night refused to go with the officers. Men in line began to refuse to produce their identification. The police decided to take everyone present to the police station, after separating those cross-dressing in a room in the back of the bar.
Long story short, a few patrons were released before the patrol wagons arrived to cart the rest off to jail, and those few stayed out front, attracted quite a large crowd, mostly LGBT people, and after an officer hit a woman over the head for saying her handcuffs were too tight, the crowd went into fight mode. By this time, the police were outnumbered by some 600 people. Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. The mob lit garbage on fire and stuffed it through the broken windows. Police tried to use water hoses to disperse the crowd, but there was no water pressure. Police pulled their weapons, but before they could fire them, the Tactical Patrol Force and firefighters arrived. The crowd mocked and fought against the police, who began swinging their batons right and left, not much caring who they hit or where.
The crowd was cleared by 4:00 a.m., but the mood remained dark, and the next night, rioting resumed with thousands of people showing up at the Stonewall, blocking the streets. Police responded, and again it was 4:00 a.m. before the mob was cleared.
There comes a point when people who are mistreated, abused, discriminated against, have had enough. It is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, and the police raid on the Stonewall Inn, the treatment of people who were only out to enjoy the night, was that straw. It was a history making night, not only for the LGBTQ community, but for the nation.
Within six months of the Stonewall riots, activists started a citywide newspaper called Gay; they considered it necessary because the most liberal publication in the city—The Village Voice—refused to print the word “gay”. Two other newspapers were initiated within a six-week period: Come Out! and Gay Power; the readership of these three periodicals quickly climbed to between 20,000 and 25,000. Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was formed with a constitution that began …
“We as liberated homosexual activists demand the freedom for expression of our dignity and value as human beings.”
I think that says it all, don’t you? ‘Dignity and value as human beings’. It is, in my book, a crying shame that our society needs to be reminded that we are all human beings, that we all have value and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.
Christopher Street Liberation Day on June 28, 1970 marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots with an assembly on Christopher Street; with simultaneous Gay Pride marches in Los Angeles and Chicago, these were the first Gay Pride marches in U.S. history. The next year, Gay Pride marches took place in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, London, Paris, West Berlin, and Stockholm. The Stonewall riots are considered the birth of the gay liberation movement and of gay pride on a massive scale. The event has been likened to the Boston Tea Party, and Rosa Parks’ refusal to move to the back of the bus. All of those were people’s way of saying, “We’ve had enough!”
2019 marked the 50-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn raid and ensuing riots, and at long last, the New York City Police Department apologized to the LGBTQ community. “The actions taken by the NYPD [at Stonewall] were wrong, plain and simple,” police commissioner James O’Neill said. He also noted that the frequent harassment of LGBTQ men and women and laws that prohibited same-sex sexual relations are “discriminatory and oppressive” and apologized on behalf of the department.
President Bill Clinton first declared June to be National Pride Month in 1999, and again in 2000. On June 1, 2001, President George W. Bush announced that the White House would not formally recognize Pride Month. Every year that President Barack Obama was in office, he declared June to be LGBT Pride Month. Donald Trump ignored it in throughout his tenure and blocked the display of the Pride flag at all U.S. embassies. Last year, President Biden recognized Pride Month, saying he “will not rest until full equality for LGBTQ+ Americans is finally achieved and codified into law.”
“During LGBTQ+ Pride Month, we recognize the resilience and determination of the many individuals who are fighting to live freely and authentically. In doing so, they are opening hearts and minds, and laying the foundation for a more just and equitable America.”
And yesterday evening, he once again proclaimed June to be Pride Month and denouncing the anti-LGBTQ laws and book bannings that have been taking place in the states.
“During Pride Month, we honor a movement that has grown stronger, more vibrant, and more inclusive with every passing year. Pride is a celebration of generations of LGBTQI+ people who have fought bravely to live openly and authentically. And it is a reminder that we still have generational work to do to ensure that everyone enjoys the full promise of equity, dignity, protection, and freedom.”
Since this post turned into a history lesson, I wrote a second post to highlight some of the celebrations, the fun ways that people celebrate pride month, the people and organizations that are supporting Pride Month, and to honour the LGBTQ community, but I felt the history was important also, so … stay tuned for Part II later this afternoon!
There are few people alive today who deserve the title ‘hero’ in every sense of the word. John Lewis was one such person.
John Robert Lewis was born in Troy, Alabama, on Feb. 21, 1940, one of 10 children of Eddie and Willie Mae Lewis. According to “March,” his three-part autobiography in graphic novel form, he dreamed from a young age of being a preacher. He was in charge of taking care of his family’s chickens and would practice sermons on them: “I preached to my chickens just about every night.” But life had other plans for young John Lewis.
In 1965, at age 25, Lewis marched with Dr. Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery, and was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, where he was beaten by police and knocked unconscious. When the marchers stopped to pray, the police discharged tear gas and mounted troopers charged the demonstrators, beating them with night sticks. Lewis’s skull was fractured, but he escaped across the bridge to Brown Chapel, the movement’s headquarter church in Selma. Before Lewis could be taken to the hospital, he appeared before the television cameras calling on President Johnson to intervene in Alabama. Lewis still bore the scars on his head from the incident.
In 1986, John Lewis was elected to the House of Representatives from Georgia’s fifth district, a seat he would win and hold until his death last night. He was reelected 16 times, dropping below 70 percent of the vote in the general election only once. In 1994, he defeated Republican Dale Dixon by a 38-point margin, 69%–31%. He ran unopposed in 1996, from 2004 to 2008, in 2014, and again in 2018.
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