History
In June of 1970, one
year after the Stonewall riots, thousands of
demonstrators marched up Sixth Avenue in New
York from the former Stonewall Inn on
Christopher Street to Central Park where a
"gay-in" was held. It was called
the Christopher Street Liberation Day and it
was the beginning of Gay Pride celebrations
as we know them. Each year in June, Pride
festivities across the country serve to
commemorate the birth of the modern gay and
lesbian civil rights movement as well as
affirm our lives in the context of the larger
community. During the 1970s, in conservative,
steel-town Buffalo, a closeted gay community
acknowledged Pride privately and
unofficially. Community-spirited people like
Bobbi Prebis, Gail King, Jim Haynes, Don
Licht, Claude Gary, Don Michaels, Marge
Maloney and Joan Radkewicz were active in
Buffalo's first gay community center (over a
tire store on Main Street) out of which many
Gay Pride activities grew. Participants
describe a gay community largely divided
along gender lines with separate dances and
picnics for men and women; the men held their
dances on Fridays, while the Sisters of
Sappho danced on Saturdays. Workshops and
discussions at the Niagara Branch of the
Library on Porter Avenue were regular June
events. One infamous workshop on S & M in
the women's community was boycotted by a
large number of women! Many people still
recall a huge picnic attended by both men and
women on some rented property in 1976. By the
mid-1980s, Gay Pride activities in Buffalo
were more focused and more centralized. In
1988 the Buffalo Gay & Lesbian Community
Network was founded by Carol Speser and Larry
Peck and the Network sponsored the Lesbian
and Gay Pride Unity Fest (LAGPUF) for the
next four years. The 1988 Pride Unity Fest,
organized under the theme, Power through
Unity with Diversity, included a day of
workshops, a Miss Buffalo Boat ride sponsored
by Gay and Lesbian Youth of Buffalo (GLYB), a
concert by the City of Good Neighbors
Chorale, the DYKETONES at the Tralfamadore
Café, a talk by transgendeded activist
Leslie Fienberg for Workers World and The
Other Sex, a gay and lesbian film festival
sponsored by HALLWALLS. Other events from the
80s which became hallmarks of local Gay Pride
celebrations included the annual AIDS
Memorial Candlelight Service hosted by the
Interfaith AIDS Network, the Hall of Shame
Awards (1990 nominees included "Hizzoner
Jimmy Griffin" and school board member
James Comerford), the annual women's, or
womyn's, dances sponsored by GROW and SHADES
(Saturday nights, of course), the
Frontrunners annual Gay Pride Run, the Queen
City Softball Day at Front Park and the
famous Gearing Up for Summer Party at
Ellicott Creek Park. The first Candlelight
Wish Celebration, conceived by Carol Speser
and held behind the Buffalo & Erie County
Historical Society overlooking Delaware Park
Lake, was the centerpiece of the 1991 Lesbian
and Gay Pride Unity Fest. This was the first
major Pride event in Buffalo to be held
outdoors in a public place. This unique
event, with its secluded outdoor setting and
non-denominational spiritual element, offered
a graceful transition between private and
public celebrations of Gay Pride. Highlights
of the evening included appearances by Common
Council President George K. Arthur and Lance
Ringel, first director of the NYS Office of
Lesbian & Gay Concerns. The second annual
Candlelight Wish Celebration featured a
message from then Governor Mario Cuomo, a
moving address by (straight) Buffalo News
columnist Donn Esmond and a male drag chorus
line made up of performers from rival bars,
an apparently unprecedented feat accomplished
by Jimmy Smith. Another high spot of the 1992
Pride lineup was a performance by Lea Delia,
again at the Tralf (women only, please). In
1993, at least 500 Buffalonians traveled to
Washington for the April "March on
Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual
Equal Rights and Liberation", one of the
largest civil rights demonstrations in
history, with between 300,000 and 1 million
participants. The activist spirit brought
home by local organizers from this
extraordinary event resulted in Buffalo's
first ever Gay Pride Parade. The parade and
other Gay Pride activities were produced that
year by the Pride/Western New York Committee
of the Community Network. From 1995,
Presidents of the Pride committee have
included: Tamara Smith, Kate Gallivan, and
Danny Winter (a.k.a. Vicky Vogue). Pride
celebrations continued to be sponsored by the
Network through 1997 after which time the
struggling organization folded. In 1998,
fearing the effects of a loss of continuity
an ad-hoc committee of dedicated persons came
together to coordinate the Pride parade and
celebration. From this group, Pride Buffalo,
Inc., an independent community group which
now organizes Gay Pride, was born. The group
incorporated as a not-for-profit [501(C)(3)]
organization in order to lay a permanent
foundation for future Pride celebrations and
to ensure a smooth succession of leadership.
Gay Pride celebrations in Buffalo have been
made possible by the efforts of countless
volunteers, but the following cannot fail to
be recognized for their significant
contributions over the years: Connie Burns,
Gary Williams, Betsy Swift, Greg Bodeker,
Bill Goodman, David Granville, Douglas Ping,
and Chris Puchalski. Among the many
organizations whose generous financial
support over the years helped make Pride
celebrations a success are: AIDS Community
Services of WNY, Inc., BFLO and BOLT Buffalo
Leather Buddies, Buffalo United Artists, the
Empire State Pride Agenda, GLYS, the Imperial
Court of Buffalo, P-FLAG, the Premier
Companies, and last but not least our
community bars.
|
|
