well it's June marks 24 years of pride month being nationally recognized but it comes at a time when some state legislators are adopting laws targeting lgbtq plus individuals and the issue has become a major front in the culture wars our own Arrow Barnett has a history behind pride month Errol hey there Lana a lot of this I actually didn't realize before our folks pulled all this information together get this folks the origins of pride month date back to the Stonewall uprising of 1969. you see b
ack then it was a crime to quote masquerade as a member of the opposite sex here in New York City that's a fact and a police raid at the Stonewall and on June 28th was the final straw for its patrons they and other frustrated New Yorkers protested and rioted for days in the surrounding Christopher Street neighborhood and that outcry sparked the modern lgbtq movement and to Mark the one-year anniversary of this Uprising gay parades Pride parades were held in New York City San Francisco Chicago an
d Los Angeles and these parades were specifically designed to continue the activism inspired by that original Uprising you see previous protest efforts they'd been much smaller including quiet marches around Philadelphia's Independence Hall for example but Stonewall convinced activists to be louder and more visible loud and proud as a phrase you'll often hear at the New York March alone up to 5 000 people attended according to estimates now other cities adopted their own marches and events to hi
ghlight different aspects of the movement throughout the month of June the AIDS crisis back in the 1980s gave the community another unifying cause as they organized to both celebrate pride and demand action to treat that crisis and here you see in the 1990s visibility for lgbtq individuals in daily life meant more corporations joining Pride activities and in 1999 President Bill Clinton officially declared June as gay and lesbian pride month and the month also has significant more recent historic
al weight for the lgbtq community as well marking major Supreme Court decisions and that includes the right to marry
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