Pride Month

What is Pride Month?

Pride month is celebrated every June to remember those involved in the Stonewall Riots of 1969.

Pride is a celebration designed to recognise the influence of the LGBTQ+ community, their diversity and people’s right to live how they want without being judged.

Pride Month brings attention to problems that the LGBTQ+ community faces and gives people a chance to celebrate a culture of acceptance through parades, street parties, community events, and other activities.

How did Pride Month start?

On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

This led to bar workers, customers, and other locals rioting in the streets for 6 days and calling for safe places where LGBTQ+ people could be themselves without fear.

The next year, bisexual activist Brenda Howard helped organise Gay Pride Week and the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade. This eventually turned into New York City Pride. As the event grew, June became known as Pride Month, and people all over the world started to recognise it as such.

The Progress Pride Flag

The original Pride flag was created by Gilbert Baker in 1977 and was inspired by the lyrics of Judy Garland’s Over the Rainbow, and the designs used by other social movements such as black civil rights groups from the 1960s.

Baker hand-dyed and hand sewed the flag which flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day in June 1978.

The Office of LGBT Affairs in Philadelphia added black and brown stripes to the Pride flag in 2017 to honour people of colour. A year later, an artist named Daniel Quasar released an updated design of the Pride flag called the Progress Pride flag. 

The Progress Pride flag is recognised all over the world to represent the LGBTQ+ communities. It’s a symbol of hope, unity and empowerment to allow love to be love regardless of gender, ethnicity or labels.