This morning, about half an hour after the Supreme Court announced the overturn of Roe v. Wade, a crowd gathered outside the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan to mark another momentous occasion—this one more positive—the breaking ground of what will become the first LGBTQ+ visitor center in the U.S. park system. The Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center will be located right next to the Stonewall Inn, and will serve to celebrate and advance the legacy of the Stonewall uprising that gave way to what we know as LGBTQ+ Pride today.
Despite the many fabulous parties and rainbow outfits that LGBTQ.+ Pride month ushers in every year in June, the true story of Pride often goes untold. The original Pride, the first Pride, was a riot. The story goes that in the very early hours of June 28, 1969, the police conducted a raid of the Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay bar, but this time, instead of accepting the harassment, patrons decided to uprise. Transgender, gay, lesbian, and other members of the queer community, especially people of color, stood together against police violence in a protest that took days. While there had been protests against the treatment of gay and trans folks before, the Stonewall riot set a precedent and marked the beginning of a long, and still ongoing, fight for LGBTQ+ rights.
“Time goes by, and unfortunately the stories of the past and the people that got us to where we are today often disappear and get lost,” American designer Michael Kors told Vogue this morning. Together with his husband Lance Le Pere, Kors is a founding supporter through the Kors Le Pere Foundation. “I can’t believe it’s taken this long to happen,” Kors continued, adding that in today’s political climate that sees targeted attacks on the rights of women, transgender people, and the queer community at large it’s more important than ever for younger generations to see what transpired before their time.
“I know people who were here then, you don’t want the story and the strength to move forward to disappear,” Kors added. “They [the first Stonewall activists and rioters] were not people who anyone was listening to before, and suddenly their voice was heard, so hopefully we can keep amplifying it and move forward and fight the slide backward.”
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