Editing Stonewall riots (section)

===Gay Pride===
{{main|NYC Pride March#Origins}}
[[File:Gay and Proud (1970).webm|thumb|thumbtime=50|''Gay and Proud'', a 1970 film by [[Lilli Vincenz]] documenting the first Christopher Street Liberation Day]]
Christopher Street Liberation Day, on June 28, 1970, marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots with an assembly on Christopher Street; with simultaneous Gay Pride marches in Los Angeles and Chicago, these were the first [[Pride parade|Gay Pride marches]] in US history.{{sfn|Duberman|1993|pp=278–279}}<ref>De la Croix, Sukie (2007). {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20090729073555/http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/1945 "Gay power: A History of Chicago Pride"]}} ''Chicago Free Press''. Retrieved June 1, 2009.</ref> The next year, Gay Pride marches took place in [[Boston]], [[Dallas]], [[Milwaukee]], London, Paris, [[West Berlin]] and [[Stockholm]].{{sfn|LaFrank|1999|p=20}} The [[NYC Pride March|march in New York]] covered 51 blocks, from Christopher Street to [[Central Park]]. The march took less than half the scheduled time due to excitement, but also due to wariness about walking through the city with gay banners and signs. Although the parade permit was delivered only two hours before the start of the march, the marchers encountered little resistance from onlookers.{{sfn|Clendinen|1999|pp=62–64}} ''The New York Times'' reported (on the front page) that the marchers took up the entire street for about 15 city blocks.<ref name="fosburgh">Fosburgh, Lacey (June 29, 1970). [https://www.nytimes.com/1970/06/29/archives/thousands-of-homosexuals-hold-a-protest-rally-in-central-park.html "Thousands of Homosexuals Hold A Protest Rally in Central Park"]. ''The New York Times'', p. 1.</ref> Reporting by ''The Village Voice'' was positive, describing "the out-front resistance that grew out of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn one year ago".{{sfn|LaFrank|1999|p=20}}

{{Quote box |width=30em | align=right |qalign=left |quote=There was little open animosity and some bystanders applauded when a tall, pretty girl carrying a sign "I am a Lesbian" walked by.|salign=right|source=—''The New York Times'' coverage of Gay Liberation Day, 1970<ref name="fosburgh"/>}}

By 1972, the participating cities included [[Atlanta]], [[Buffalo, New York|Buffalo]], Detroit, Washington, D.C., Miami, [[Minneapolis]], and Philadelphia,<ref name="Armstrong"/> as well as San Francisco.

Frank Kameny soon realized the pivotal change brought by the Stonewall riots. An organizer of gay activism in the 1950s, he was used to persuasion, trying to convince heterosexuals that gay people were no different from them. When he and other people marched in front of the White House, the State Department, and Independence Hall only five years earlier, their objective was to look as if they could work for the US government.{{sfn|Cain|2007|pp=91–92}} Ten people marched with Kameny then and they alerted no press to their intentions. Although he was stunned by the upheaval by participants in the Annual Reminder in 1969, he later observed, "By the time of Stonewall, we had fifty to sixty gay groups in the country. A year later there were at least fifteen hundred. By two years later, to the extent that a count could be made, it was twenty-five hundred."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=251}}

Similar to Kameny's regret at his own reaction to the shift in attitudes after the riots, Randy Wicker came to describe his embarrassment as "one of the greatest mistakes of his life".{{sfn|Clendinen|1999|p=25}} The image of gay people retaliating against police, after so many years of allowing such treatment to go unchallenged, "stirred an unexpected spirit among many homosexuals".{{sfn|Clendinen|1999|p=25}} Kay Lahusen, who photographed the marches in 1965, stated, "Up to 1969, this movement was generally called the homosexual or homophile movement{{nbsp}}... Many new activists consider the Stonewall uprising the birth of the gay liberation movement. Certainly, it was the birth of gay pride on a massive scale."{{sfn|LaFrank|1999|p=21}} David Carter explained that even though there were several uprisings before Stonewall, the reason Stonewall was so significant was that thousands of people were involved, the riot lasted a long time (six days), it was the first to get major media coverage, and it sparked the formation of many gay rights groups.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Carter |first1=David |title=What made Stonewall Different |journal=The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide |volume=16 |issue=4 |year=2009 |pages=11–13 |url=http://www.glreview.org/article/article-509/}}</ref>