Last Sunday was Pride in New York City and, of course for me, it is always a special day regardless if I’m there or not.
It always brings me back to that first Pride, when I was an 18-year-old marshal. At the time, we only had two lanes blocked off, and it was our job to keep the people in those lanes and away from traffic. The estimates of that first gay Pride, then called Christopher Street Liberation Day March, were anywhere from 5,000-15,000. Last Sunday, there were between 1-2 million among parade marchers and spectators. But that’s not the only change in 46 years.
Last Friday on “The Late Show with Steven Colbert,” the host came out on stage to a cheering crowd and said, “It’s Pride weekend in New York!” The audience roared in approval. Later in the show, he had RuPaul on to explain Pride. Then, of course, were all the network reports on Pride — that is, when there weren’t commercials with Ellen DeGeneres, or one of the many TV shows with LGBT characters.
As an 18-year-old at that first Pride, I often wonder what Henry Gerber would think. He founded the nation’s first LGBT civil-rights organization in Chicago in 1925. If I’m amazed at the progress that’s happened, imagine what he would think. Or Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, who founded The Scientific Humanitarian Committee in Berlin, Germany, in 1895 — the world’s first LGBT civil-rights organization.
The point is, LGBT equality has not happened overnight. And in many ways, we still have a long way to go.
On Monday after Pride, I got to host U.S. Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania as he held a roundtable discussion with the LGBT community in Philadelphia. He explained the long road the Equality Act has taken since its introduction in 1974. I recall when that legislation was first introduced by Bella Abzug; that 18-year-old boy at that first gay Pride would have never imagined he’d be introducing a U.S. Senator in an LGBT-friendly senior apartment building to discuss LGBT issues.
Those 5,000-15,000 people who braved that first march in New York were marching with pride in themselves and the community they were building. Today, millions feel that Pride each year — and it is that Pride in ourselves and our community that will bring equality.
To each of you, thank you!