Diana Davies. Gay “Be-In,” Sheep Meadow, Central Park, New York, June 28, 1970.

The first LGBT pride marches were held on June 28, 1970. Originally called Christopher Street Liberation Day, marches were held in 1970 to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.  Craig Rodwell, activist and owner of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore, obtained support for the march from ERCHO’s (Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations) November 1969 convention. Rodwell drew in support from New York City activists and organizations, such as Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance, to create the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee to plan the march. A sister march was planned and held in Los Angeles by their Gay Liberation Front. The march went from Washington Place in Greenwich Village uptown on Sixth Avenue to end with a ‘gay-in” in Central Park.

Many of the men and women who marched that day would forever remember that moment on top of the bluff. Before them lay a field of uncut grass, a blizzard of banners, dancing, pot-smoking, singing and music, a huge American flag, “gay pride” signs decorated with the Day-Glo hippie flower stickers, and men and women applauding each new arrival over the hill. And behind them—stretching out as far as they could see—was line after line after line of homosexuals and their supporters, at least fifteen blocks worth, by the count of the New York Times, which found the turnout notable enough to report it on the front page of the next day’s paper. No one had ever seen so many homosexuals in one place before. On top of the bluff, many of these men and women, who had grown up isolated and alone, stood in silence and cried.
From Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America by Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney.

More images of the early Christopher Street Liberation Day marches by Kay Tobin Lahusen and Richard Wandell are available in the Library’s Digital Gallery.

The seminal 1970s San Fransisco drag troupe The Cockettes, whose luminous members included Hibiscus and Sylvester, are holding a reunion of their surviving members this week in New York City with an amazing range of performances and forums across the city.  The reunion is, in part, to celebrate the gift of the papers of Cockette Martin Worman to The New York Public Library’s Billy Rose Theatre Division. Worman worked as a playwright, director, actor, and lyricist with the Cockettes and continued this work until his death from AIDS in 1993. Worman worked with Divine, Mink Stole, Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn, Reno, and Robert Wilson—among many others—and served as a mentor to current performers like Antony of Antony and the Johnsons. His unfinished NYU dissertation was the basis for the Cockettes documentary by David Weissman and Bill Weber. His archives have been cared for by his partner Robert Croonquist, who is donating them to the Library—where they will become the Martin Worman Cockettes / Gay Theatre Archives—and has been key in organizing the reunion.

Last night a host of New York drag greats honored the Cockettes and their families at “The Cockettes Are Coming!” at the Theater for the New City. On Wednesday, June 4th, there will be a salon at Monkeytown, “A Cocktail of Glamour and Anarchy!” hosted by Cockette Rumi Missabu, with  performances and screenings of their work. On Thursday, June 5th, 7:30-9 p.m. there will be a symposium on the Cockettes at the LGBT Community Center, featuring twelve of the original members, hosted by Mink Stole and Steven Watson. For more history on the Cockettes check out Midnight at the Palace: My Life as a Fabulous Cockette by Pam Tent. For more information about the events and the archive check out coverage in the Village Voice and Faerie Camp Destiny.