From Towleroad –

Next summer, WorldPride comes to the United States for the first time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. The sixth edition of the culturally-diverse WorldPride will attract millions of LGBTQI+ revelers for the largest celebration of Pride in history. In honor of this incredible event Towleroad is celebrating 50 years of LGBTQI+ history with a series examining queer life from the 1960s through today.

The June 28, 1969 Stonewall Riots enflamed the LGBTQ liberation movement, but it wasn’t until 1970 that the protests transformed into the earliest iteration of Pride.

The first Christopher Street Liberation Day, June 28, 1970, included the first Gay Pride March from Christopher Street to Central Park. (Chicago Gay Liberation hosted a march the day before to commemorate the riots taking place the last Saturday in June.) In the subsequent years, Pride celebrations spread to Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas, Paris, London and more.

Increases in visibility led to increased tolerance as well. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association board voted unanimously to remove homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders. States began decriminalizing sexual relations between consenting adults.

It wasn’t all progress, though. Singer, activist and villain Anita Bryant spent the ’70s crusading against local anti-discrimination ordinances. Galvanized by some of her early successes repealing legislation, LGBTQ rights groups organized boycotts of oranges (Bryant was the spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission), and once was pied in the face by an activist.

Read the full article  with all kinds  of  70’s  LGBTQ  information,  you probably had no idea was out there!

Learn more about the Stonewall 50th Anniversary and  World  Pride  NYC  here!