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People march into New York's Central Park during the nation's first gay pride parade on June 28, 1970. The event was held on the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots, when members of the gay community clashed with police who had raided the Stonewall Inn in Manhattan. Mike Lien/The New York Times/Redux
The parade was called Christopher Street Liberation Day. The Stonewall Inn is on Christopher Street. The riots at the gay bar and the protests that followed were a turning point for LGBT rights in the United States. Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images
"At one point, I climbed onto the base of a light pole and looked back. I was astonished; we stretched out as far as I could see, thousands of us," one of the marchers, Fred Sargeant, told the Village Voice decades later. "There were no floats, no music, no boys in briefs. The cops turned their backs on us to convey their disdain, but the masses of people kept carrying signs and banners, chanting and waving to surprised onlookers." Michael Evans/The New York Times/Redux
A couple kisses after the parade in Central Park. Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images
Several other U.S. cities followed with their own pride parades. Here, people march down Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles on June 29, 1970. AP
A crowd holds banners as they march in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston in 1970. Spencer Grant/Getty Images
People march in the Boston gay pride parade. Spencer Grant/Getty Images
