In the early evening and well past the setting of the sun on June 28 — exactly 50 years after the Stonewall Uprising began following a police raid on the West Village bar — WorldPride hosted a commemorative rally at Christopher Street and Waverly Place outside the historic Stonewall Inn.
Among several dozen speakers were grand marshals of the June 30 WorldPride March — Monica Helms, the creator of the Transgender Flag; Lady Phyll, a co-founder of UK Black Pride; and Amit Paley, representing the group he heads, the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention group.
Elected officials who spoke included out gay City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Mayor Bill de Blasio, West Side Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
Darragh Dandurand, the rally director for NYC Pride, which produced the WorldPride activities in June, including Sunday’s march, explained that the rally aimed to “honor the diverse voices and diverse issues that have marked the remarkable progress of the LGBTQIA community over the past half century,” while recognizing “the critical importance of the need to continue our unrelenting fight for progress on so many fronts as we work toward full equality.”
