Though Pride is certainly a party it’s a lot more than that, which this year’s theme “Generations of Resistance” hopefully illuminates.
That party includes a two-day festival and a parade on Sunday where over a million spectators line up along Market Street to watch 250+ contingents march through the heart of the city, led by the famous Dykes on Bikes who rev their engines and set the pace for the parade. Pride is celebrated for all of June in San Francisco, but the official celebration actually takes place on the last weekend of the month. Though it started small, San Francisco LGBT Pride has grown to be the largest gathering of LGBTQ+ people in the world with a mission to “educate the world, commemorate our heritage, celebrate our culture, and liberate our people.” The first Pride event in San Francisco was a “Gay-In” on June 27, 1970, exactly a year after the LGBT patrons of the Stonewall Inn in NYC’s Greenwich Village rioted in response to police harassment and arrests.
How can people change their mind about us if they don’t know who we are? ~ Harvey Milk
