Interactive history
Seventeen selected US LGBTQ+ cultural and organizing milestones. This is a starting point, not a complete history.
17 milestones.
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Organizing · Chicago
Henry Gerber founded a gay-rights organization in Chicago. Its brief existence is a reminder that organized LGBTQ+ history extends well before Stonewall.
National Park Service: Henry Gerber House ↗Organizing · United States
The Mattachine Society formed in 1950, creating an early organizing network for gay men. Different groups pursued different approaches to visibility and change.
National Park Service: Pride in the 1950s ↗Organizing · San Francisco
The Daughters of Bilitis formed in 1955. Lesbian organizing belongs in the central story of the movement, rather than a footnote to it.
Library of Congress: Daughters of Bilitis ↗Publishing · United States
The Supreme Court overturned a ruling that had treated ONE magazine as obscene. Publication and circulation were important arenas of the struggle.
National Park Service: Pride in the 1950s ↗Organizing · Philadelphia
Annual July 4 pickets at Independence Hall ran from 1965 through 1969. The organizers later helped develop the first Pride march.
Library of Congress: Pride Month history ↗Organizing · New York
A police raid at the Stonewall Inn on June 28 met resistance. Demonstrations continued over subsequent nights; the uprising gave momentum to an existing movement.
National Park Service: Stonewall history ↗Organizing · Chicago
Chicago marched on June 27, marking Stonewall’s first anniversary. A photograph in the Chicago History Museum records the gathering and its route.
Chicago History Museum: LGBTQIA+ history ↗Culture · San Francisco
Gilbert Baker and collaborators made rainbow flags for the June 25 Gay Freedom Day Parade. A design made by people became a shared public symbol.
National Park Service: Gilbert Baker ↗Organizing · Washington, DC
An October 14 march brought lesbian and gay rights demands to Washington. The Smithsonian preserves a poster advertising the gathering.
Smithsonian: 1979 march poster ↗Remembrance · San Francisco
Cleve Jones conceived the Quilt in November 1985. A name could become a panel; a panel could make personal loss visible in public.
National AIDS Memorial: Quilt history ↗Organizing · New York
ACT UP was founded in March 1987. Its records document direct action, research, meetings and organizing in response to the AIDS crisis.
New York Public Library: ACT UP records ↗Remembrance · Washington, DC
The AIDS Memorial Quilt was displayed on October 11. Its form put individual remembrance at the center of a collective public statement.
National AIDS Memorial: Quilt history ↗Culture · New York
Frameline’s 1990 festival archive records Jennie Livingston’s documentary. It offers one filmmaker’s view of ballroom culture, rather than a complete account of its participants.
Frameline: Paris Is Burning archive ↗Education · United States
Education organizations designated October as LGBT History Month. Learning about the past gained a recurring place on the calendar beyond June.
Library of Congress: Pride Month history ↗Culture · United States
Cheryl Dunye’s film explores a fictional investigation into a forgotten Black performer, asking who gets remembered and who is missing from the record.
Criterion Collection: The Watermelon Woman ↗Remembrance · Chicago
The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in June 2015, recognizing an early site of gay-rights organizing.
National Park Service: Henry Gerber House ↗Remembrance · New York
Stonewall National Monument was designated on June 24. The site gives the history a place within the National Park Service.
National Park Service: 2016 designation ↗