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“I don’t think things will really be back to normal for us until there’s a vaccine, so this is a much-needed lifeline,” co-owner Stacy Lentz told The Associated Press. But it announced Sunday it will receive a $250,000 contribution from the Gill Foundation - money that will go toward several months of rent and utilities. The historic Stonewall Inn, known as the birthplace of the gay rights movement, furloughed its employees and has been shuttered more than three months amid the pandemic. Marchers trooped to Central Park, chanting “Gay power!” and “Gay and proud!”Ĭities around the world in subsequent years followed New York’s lead, hosting commemorative events. Initially called the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, it looked much like the protests that have streamed through the streets of New York City daily in recent weeks over racial injustice. The first Pride march, on June 28, 1970, was a marker of the Stonewall uprisings of the year before in New York City’s West Village that helped propel a global LGBTQ movement.
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One man held a sign advertising free hugs. Most wore masks, though some scrapped social distancing in favor of hugging friends. “So we’re really going back to the roots of that and making sure we encompass everything that empowers people to be who they are.”įischer said it was important this year to show cooperation between the Black and LGBTQ communities, given the recent deaths of George Floyd and others that have sparked demonstrations against police brutality.Ī number of people in the crowd at Foley Square held signs reading “All Black Lives Matter,” with a black fist surrounded by rainbow colors. “It’s a great thing to see because the original Pride started with the civil rights movement,” Matthew Fischer said as he passed out hand sanitizer Sunday at Foley Square. The disruption caused by the virus would be an aggravation in any year, but particularly in this one, the 50th anniversary of the first Pride march in New York City. With the city’s massive Pride parade canceled, Sunday's performances were virtual, the flags flew in emptier than normal spaces and the protesters were masked.