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| Original Marchers in front of the Stonewall Inn, June 27, 2010 (l to r:) Bob Spiegel, Roberto Camp, Rick Landman, Jim Fouratt, Mark Segal, and Perry Brass. Back right: John Knoebel with the GLF Banner. (photo courtesy: Mark Segal) |
Yesterday was the Gay Pride Parade in New York, and I marched in a contingent known as the First Marchers. We were men and women who had marched in the first gay pride march on June 28, 1970. The contingent was organized by one of my Gay Liberation Front brothers Rick Landman, who took it upon himself to organize us in last year’s march, the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, and this year for the 40th Anniversary of the Gay Pride Parade, which started out as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March to remember Stonewall.
We carried two banners: one provided by John Knoebel was a replica of the first banner GLF had carried in the first march; the other banner, provided by Mark Segal, publisher of Philadelphia Gay News, said, it all: “Original Marchers June 28, 1970. Christopher Street Gay Liberation Gay. Gay Liberation Front.”
Marching with this group, and these banners was a total joy. People cheered us and thanked us, and we cheered back and smiled, and sometimes cried remembering all those years between the first march and now, and who was there and who will never be here again.
I remember that first march very well, but remember even better the Gay Liberation Front meeting, in the spring of 1970, when Bob Kohler brought up an idea that had started with Craig Rodwell, the owner of Oscar Wilde Bookstore, to have such a march and to name it for Christopher Street, a street whose associations had become as clear and evident as other New York street names, like Broadway, Wall Street, Seventh Avenue, or Madison Avenue.
Marching with this group, and these banners was a total joy. People cheered us and thanked us, and we cheered back and smiled, and sometimes cried remembering all those years between the first march and now, and who was there and who will never be here again.
I remember that first march very well, but remember even better the Gay Liberation Front meeting, in the spring of 1970, when Bob Kohler brought up an idea that had started with Craig Rodwell, the owner of Oscar Wilde Bookstore, to have such a march and to name it for Christopher Street, a street whose associations had become as clear and evident as other New York street names, like Broadway, Wall Street, Seventh Avenue, or Madison Avenue.
