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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 6, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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LESBIAN/GAY/BI/TRANS PRIDE

New York
Throngs cheer diverse Pride marchers

By Gery Armsby

On June 25, New York's 31st annual Heritage of Pride march flowed down Fifth Avenue from Central Park to Greenwich Village. Wave after wave of the nearly 300 groups that composed this year's parade brought their lesbian, gay, bi and trans pride out into the streets of Manhattan. Huge crowds warmly cheered them.

Pride marches held each June here and around the world commemorate the June 1969 Stonewall rebellion in which trans youths and other lesbian, bisexual and gay people--Black, Latino and white--united in a momentous fight against police repression in Greenwich Village.

Out of that four-night-long street battle against the cops a movement that set its sights on lesbian and gay liberation emerged.

Since 1970, when the first commemorative march was held to remember the rebellion at the Stonewall Bar, the fight for gay and lesbian liberation has steadily strengthened--closely aligning itself with the HIV/AIDS struggle, the struggles for trans and bisexual liberation, and the struggle against racism.

The expansion and growth of the lesbian, gay, bi and trans movement and its active participation in the struggle against racism and national oppression were apparent to the hundreds of thousands who cheered and watched along the parade route.

A big contingent of Puerto Rican women marched near the front of the parade. With banners and shouts they demanded, "U.S. Navy out of Vieques!"

The Caribbean Pride float and contingent--emblazoned with flags from Jamaica, Grenada, Martinique, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Sint Maarten, Antigua, Barbados, Montserrat, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic among others--spanned almost two city blocks.

Also near the front of the march were delegations from local and national lesbian, gay, bi, trans and two-spirit people of color organizations. These included African Ancestral Lesbians United for Social Change, Audre Lorde Project, Kilawin Kolektibo: Filipina Lesbian Collective, South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association, Brasilian Rainbow Group, LLEGO--the National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Organization, Colectivo Mexicano LGBT, Project Reach, Gay Men of African Descent, and many others.

Nine student groups from local colleges and universities marched. They included gay-straight alliances from New York University and Pace University.

HIV/AIDS activists carried signs slamming the U.S. government and drug corporations for their profit lust. They blamed millions of AIDS-related deaths around the world on exhorbitantly priced treatments designed more to line the pockets of the pharmaceutical barons than to save lives.

Activists from Rainbow Flags for Mumia had a militant contingent in the parade, joined by Workers World Party, which has marched every year since 1971. The group chanted: "They're killing our people by the hour--what do we do? Fight the power."

Members of the contingent also carried banners honoring Shaka Sankofa (Gary Graham) who was murdered by the state of Texas just days before. Nine of the marchers in the Rainbow Flags for Mumia contingent had been arrested earlier in the week during actions to prevent Gov. George Bush from executing Sankofa.

Labor groups representing lesbian, gay, bi and trans workers turned out in force. There were contingents from the Lesbian and Gay Teachers' Association, AFSCME District Council 37's Lesbian and Gay Issues Committee, the National Lesbian and Gay Nurses Association, and Pride At Work, the official AFL-CIO lesbian/gay/ bi/ trans constituency group, among others.

The parade, which started at noon, lasted until well after 6 p.m. It culminated at Sheridan Square, site of the Stonewall bar where the gay and trans rebellion erupted over 30 years ago.

Among other contingents that marched were a group of veterans of the Stonewall rebellion, a delegation from the Lesbian Herstory Archives, the National Organization for Women, ACT UP, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Metropolitan Gender Network, Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force, www.stopdrlaura.com, and many, many others.

San Francisco

By Brenda Sandburg

Thousands of people cheered in support as the Rainbow Flags for Mumia contingent marched in San Francisco's Lesbian/Gay/ Bi/Trans Pride Parade on June 25.

Chanting, "We're here, we're queer, we're fighting for Mumia," and, "Hey hey, ho ho, the death penalty has got to go," the contingent reached the estimated 750,000 people lining the parade route. Workers World Party, Lesbians and Gays Against Intervention, and the Zapatista Support Committee marched together in the contingent.

San Francisco's 30th annual Pride Parade also had a strong youth presence. The Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center and the Bay Area Gay-Straight Alliance Network were among the 211 contingents. Other groups included Pride at Work, Bay Area American Indian Two Spirits, Malaysian Gay and Lesbian Club and the National Gay Pilots Association.

Comedian Margaret Cho was the celebrity grand marshal. She was joined by Grand Marshals Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who helped found the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organization in the country, and San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano.

Lesbians march

One of the most powerful and exuberant activities of lesbian/gay/bi/trans pride week was the Dyke March on June 24. Some 50,000 women marched from Dolores Park to the Castro district, cheering, drumming, and whistling. Dozens of women on motorcycles from the group "Dykes on Bikes" led the march, greeted with wild applause of appreciation.

The flatbed truck in front of the Dyke March was decorated with posters proclaiming "Abolish the death penalty" and "Down with the patriarchy."

Men and women hung out of apartment buildings along the route shouting their support and adding to the joyful, celebratory mood. Some shouted for Mumia Abu-Jamal when they saw the Rainbow Flags for Mumia banner.

"There was such a strong sense of pride in ourselves and each other," said Nancy Mitchell, a member of Rainbow Flags for Mumia. "The energy was overwhelming."

Rainbow Flags for Mumia and the International Action Center distributed thousands of "Come out against the death penalty" leaflets at the Dyke March and the Pride Parade. The leaflet linked the Stonewall Rebellion against racism and anti-gay police terror to the current struggle against the death penalty and the battle to win a new trial for Abu-Jamal.

The leaflet also called on people to join the Los Angeles protest for Abu-Jamal at the Democratic Convention on Aug. 13.

Denver
‘Not one more execution’ heard at rainbow march

Special to Workers World

Pride poured into the streets of Denver on June 25 as 100,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people from Colorado and neighboring Wyoming marched in the biggest Pride event there to date. One hundred ten contingents took part in the multinational march.

Grand marshals included Karen Williams and Dana Austin, both African American lesbian comedians, and Leslie Feinberg, lesbian transgender activist and a managing editor of Workers World newspaper.

Feinberg delivered the Pride rally keynote. She pointed to the right-wing murders of Matthew Shepard in nearby Laramie, Wyo., and James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas:

"Politicians and the media tell us that giving the courts the power to mete out stiffer sentences through passage of hate-crimes legislation will put a halt to these lynchings. But the killers of Shepard and Byrd knew that they faced the death penalty in those states. There is no harsher sentence. And virtually all the major lesbian, gay, bi and trans organizations--and the Byrd and Shepard families--are opposed to the death penalty."

Feinberg said she, along with many others across the United States, had been working feverishly to stop the execution of Gary Graham/shaka Sankofa in Texas just days before. "The death penalty is being used as a racist weapon, an anti-youth, anti-poor weapon. Let us vow: Not one more execution!" The crowd cheered in response.

"And let us also vow that we will not let the state take Mumia Abu-Jamal from us," she continued. Feinberg is a co-founder of Rainbow Flags for Mumia.

"What is the rainbow connection with Mumia's struggle?" she asked the crowd. "The state has him on a fast-track for execution because he is a Black revolutionary.

"If they were able to execute a man who millions around the world believe was framed for political reasons, it is meant to send a chilling message to all who fight for change. And it would give the green light to the bashers and lynchers."

The crowd roared its agreement when Feinberg concluded, "What is needed to protect all of our lives is a mass movement that unites all who are fighting against oppression."

Lesbians march in New York

On June 24, more than 2,500 lesbians and their supporters took to the streets of New York for the annual Dyke March. These marches take place the night before Lesbian/Gay/Bi/ Trans Pride marches in cities including San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, Tokyo and Toronto.

The first recorded Dyke March was in 1993 when 20,000 people joined together the night before a national march on Wash ington. This tradition continues as a symbol of women's contribution to the struggle for lesbian, gay, bi and transgender liberation.
—Elijah Crane

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