Attendance of that year’s parade skyrocketed. This galvanized the city’s LGBTQIA+ community in 1977. The following year, Mayor Jackson issued a subsequent proclamation for Civil Liberties Day after facing backlash for his emphasis of Gay Pride in 1976. Mayor Maynard Jackson declared the day of the parade, June 26, to be Gay Pride Day in Atlanta. The march ended at Piedmont Park where a rally took place.įast forward six years to 1976 and the crowd swelled to more than 1,000 people at Atlanta Pride, but it remained predominantly white and male. Around 100 demonstrators-mostly white males-marched down Midtown’s sidewalks carrying “Equal Rights for Gays” posters. The following year, the Georgia Gay Liberation Front organized Atlanta’s first Pride parade. This small act of protest sent ripples through the city’s gay community. Organizers worried that, in that inaugural year, too few people would choose to march, so they opted for tabling in Piedmont Park. To do this, organizers sought to create new traditions through Pride parades, rallies, and publications.Ītlanta’s first Pride event (though it wasn’t labeled as such) took place in 1970 on the first anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in New York. The aims of parade and rally organizers were to seek out opportunities for policy change, to form a sense of unity within the community, and to build a network of outspoken supporters to serve as a hub for LGBTQIA+ rights in the South. Pride in Atlanta during the 1970s and 1980s focused on forging a path for LGBTQIA+ activists. Pride for the People: Origins of the Movement As the city gathers (distantly, virtually) to once again to chart its future, we invite you to examine Pride’s past. In its 50 th year, Atlanta Pride, celebrated in October, remains one of the foremost gatherings of LGBTQIA+ activists in the country. Marches honoring Tony McDade and Nina Pop superseded annual celebrations, and “Pride was a riot” became a popular refrain among demonstrators.ĭemonstrators honoring Tony McDade march past Margaret Mitchell House on Jon their way to rally in Piedmont Park.
Protesters carrying “Black Trans Lives Matter” signs joined the Georgia NAACP march, culminating at the State House on June 15, 2020. Throughout Atlanta, marches honoring black transgender and nonbinary people killed by police threaded the city. In June 2020-National Pride Month-Pride rallies once again responded to police brutality, even though in-person celebrations were cancelled amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. They were responsible for the organization of the city’s first Pride demonstration-a small tabling event in Piedmont park where a handful of activists distributed leaflets-held in 1970. The militant actions of Atlanta Police in August 1969 galvanized the city’s movement and led to the foundation of the Georgia Gay Liberation Front, Atlanta’s first gay activist group to gain political traction. Within that environment, the city’s LBGTQIA+ organizers saw an opportunity for visibility and change.Īs it often does, the present echoes the past. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as Atlanta’s central role in the Civil Rights Movement. That year national tensions were high from the Vietnam anti-war movement and from the assassination of Dr. In Atlanta, the Lonesome Cowboys raid of August 1969 sparked similar outrage from the LGBTQIA+ community across the city.
The protests in New York on June 28, 1969, proved to be the catalyst for communities across the country, inspiring protest, mobilization, and change. Last year marked the marked the 50 th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, which sparked national media attention for America’s LGBTQ rights movement.
This year is no different-Atlanta Pride is once again seeking to amplify the messages of our city’s LGBTQIA+ community, making history by going virtual. Though it’s taken new forms over the years, Pride’s mission has remained the same: to advance unity and visibility amongst Atlanta’s LGBTQIA+ community. Party on Pride.įor half a century, Atlanta Pride has provided a platform from which the city’s LGBTQIA+ citizens can voice their opinions and celebrate their community.
While we can’t be together this year, Atlanta History Center looks forward to celebrating with our community at 10 th and Peachtree next October. To learn more about our ATL’s risk-taking change makers and historic moments beyond the Pride Parade, we encourage you to explore the Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History Thing collection, the Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project, the Touching Up Our Roots oral history project, and other resources listed below this article. While this article provides an overview of more than half a century of activism in our city, it is by no means exhaustive. Our city’s LGBTQIA+ history is nuanced and vast-and too complex to be contained in a single story.