The genesis of the Pride March:
Proposing the march at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) in 1969

by Ellen Broidy

The weekend of June 28, 1969, I was on Fire Island, sharing a house with my then partner, Linda Rhodes and Barbara Gittings, Kay Tobin (Lahusen), Roz Regelson, and Elinor Lester.  Barbara, Kay, Roz, and Elinor were all veterans of the 1960s homophile movement and there was little about the gay activism of the day that they were not plugged into. Linda and I, some years younger than the other four women, were also active, but in the somewhat narrower confines of the NYU Student Homophile League and the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop.

Heading back to the city on Monday, June 30 felt markedly different. Remember, this was less connected time, without the myriad social networking platforms we now take for granted. Hardly anyone I knew on the island had a TV. We did, however, have the trusty telephone and before the weekend was over, most of the Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove was abuzz with the news that something quite extraordinary had happened at the Stonewall, a Mafia-controlled bar in the West Village. Given Barbara and Kay’s visibility in Daughters of Bilitis and Mattachine, our household probably knew more than most about what had transpired that weekend. Apologies for the judgmental characterization, but I would hazard a guess that the hungover travelers leaving Fire Island on a ferry aptly named “the bucket of blood” were not (yet) the most politically engaged group. That Monday morning, however, it seemed as if lightening had struck and each of us, in our own way, immediately got caught up in something that we somehow suspected would forever alter our lives.

During the week, after work and summer school classes, I hung out behind the counter at the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, then in its original location on Mercer Street, in the heart of NYU. I had spent practically every afternoon at the bookshop since its opening in 1967 and, in my admittedly pre-feminist days, considered it, along with the NYU Student Homophile League, my political home. Craig Rodwell, the bookstore’s founder, was a close friend and while our politics did not always mesh, he was an out and proud gay person, just the sort of role model I hungered for as an awkward 23-year-old.

That summer, Linda and I started also attending meetings of the Gay Liberation Front, organized immediately after Stonewall. While equally committed to the fight for lesbian and gay rights, the discussions at GLF, held at Alternate U on 14th Street, and the post-Stonewall conversation that swirled around Craig and the bookstore seemed to be taking place on parallel, rarely intersecting, tracks. I came to appreciate the difference between a struggle for individual “rights” and a movement for human “liberation” and the challenges inherent in reconciling the two.

As a result of this dawning realization, I soon found myself navigating the several competing currents of the nascent lesbian and gay movement. From Barbara and Kay, I had learned about the annual demonstrations that took place, initially in front of the White House and later, the 4th of July actions at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. In both, extraordinarily brave women and men protested – in daylight, faces exposed – to demand protection from arbitrary dismissal from government employment for out (or suspected) homosexuals. These actions, mild by today’s standards, were radical for their time. I make this point both to honor the courage of the people who took to the streets when few dared, as well as to own up to my subsequent role in denigrating and demeaning much of what they did as being too “straight,” accommodationist, and narrowly establishment.

In November 1969, the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) met in Philadelphia. At the time, I was the “president” of the NYU Student Homophile League (soon to morph into NYU Gay Students Liberation), an active member of the Gay Liberation Front, and part of the informal (by which I mean unpaid) staff at the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. In short, I belonged everywhere and nowhere – but I was determined to be in Philadelphia, to somehow participate in framing our future.

But then, in the middle of what started out as a simple get together with friends, I was handed the opportunity to play a small yet pivotal role in our history. The night before we were to head to Philadelphia for ERCHO, Linda and I had dinner with Craig and his partner, Fred Sargeant, at their Bleecker Street apartment. As usual, the conversation quickly turned towards what was going on in the “movement,” and, what might transpire in Philadelphia. We began talking about the earlier Independence Hall demonstrations. With all the ego, bluster, and callousness of youth, I disparaged the work of the brave women and men who mounted the action, making fun of their formal attire (men in suits, women in dresses) and to my newly radicalized mind, limited objectives.  I guess my bluster was contagious because within minutes, Craig had a pad and pen at the ready and the four of us set about drafting a resolution to turn the July 4th Philadelphia demonstration into a full-scale march for liberation. We proposed moving it to New York City, and holding it the next year, on the last weekend in June, in commemoration and celebration of the Stonewall rebellion and of the radical political movement we were confident would emerge from it.

Craig Rodwell was a remarkable man, a visionary in many ways. But he was also a lightning rod; he attracted as much derision as praise and he was painfully aware of that. We were concerned that if he presented the resolution, some in attendance at ERCHO would judge the speaker, not the speech. Although the resolution was, in large measure a collective undertaking, Craig was the prime mover. Political animal that he was, he knew all too well the risks involved if he spoke out and felt in his gut that this was too important to have personal animosities scuttle a magnificent idea. My memory is sketchy here, but somehow, we decided that since I was an “official delegate,” I would present the proposal to the conference the next day.

While I had chaired the NYU Gay Students Liberation meetings and had occasionally spoken up at GLF, I was neither by nature nor inclination, at ease speaking in public. However, like Craig, I understood the significance of the resolution and the gravity of the moment. Swallowing my hesitation, I stood in the middle of the conference circle and proposed changing the annual 4th of July demonstration to a full-out march for liberation and social transformation. The march would expressly mark the significance of June 1969 at Stonewall and highlight the work of the Gay Liberation Front which, more than any other organization, understood the possibility, the necessity, of turning a moment into a movement. No one was surprised when members of the GLF contingent at ERCHO were the first to shout “right on!” –the verbal equivalent of unbridled support in 1969. If I remember correctly, the only representatives voicing opposition (passively, by abstaining from the vote), was the New York branch of the Mattachine Society.

The June 1970 march was just that, a march, a large group of marginalized people taking it to the streets: no floats, no corporate sponsors, no phalanx of police marching with us as if this were some strange and alternate version of the Macy’s parade. Crowds lined the sidewalks, stood at windows and on fire escapes but we had no idea whether they were there to cheer us on or do us harm. It was in equal parts thrilling and terrifying but mostly it was life affirming. We were in the streets demanding rights and liberation across multiple oppressed communities.

I am so proud to say that my sisters and brothers from GLF, now in our 60s, 70s, and 80s, no matter our differences and splits, continue to march for, to work for, to demand, liberation, for all people, to this very day.