August 29: Before Pride Had a Name, Someone Had to Speak First

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AUGUST 29

🏳️‍🌈 THIS DAY IN LGBTQ+ HISTORY

Long before Stonewall, Pride flags, marriage equality, or even the word “homosexual” became widely used, LGBTQ+ people were already challenging the laws and attitudes that criminalized who they were.

August 29 gives us a powerful reminder that our movement did not begin in modern America. The fight stretches across generations and continents, from one man standing before hundreds of legal professionals in 1867 to hundreds of LGBTQ+ activists taking over the streets of New York City more than a century later.

🏳️‍🌈 1867: KARL HEINRICH ULRICHS SPEAKS OUT

On August 29, 1867, German lawyer and writer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs stood before approximately 500 members of the Congress of German Jurists in Munich and publicly argued against laws criminalizing same sex relationships.

It was extraordinary for the time.

Ulrichs openly defended people attracted to the same sex and called for an end to their legal persecution. His speech was met with opposition and eventually cut short, but the moment became historic.

Ulrichs is widely recognized as one of the world's earliest public advocates for what we would now call LGBTQ+ rights.

Think about the courage that required in 1867.

There was no Pride Month.

There was no rainbow flag.

There were no national LGBTQ+ organizations.

There was no social media community waiting to support him.

Yet he stood up anyway.

Sometimes movements begin because one person becomes willing to say publicly what thousands of others have been forced to whisper privately.

✊🏾 1970: THE “FORGOTTEN RIOT”

More than a century later, LGBTQ+ people were still fighting police harassment in the streets of New York.

On the night of August 29, 1970, more than 700 members and supporters of groups including the Gay Activists Alliance, Gay Liberation Front, Radical Lesbians, other women's groups, and Gay Youth participated in a peaceful Times Square demonstration demanding an end to police harassment of LGBTQ+ people.

This was just over a year after Stonewall.

The demonstration moved from Times Square toward Greenwich Village. Later that night, confrontations erupted between protesters and police around the Village.

The events became associated with what has sometimes been called the “Forgotten Riot.”

That name itself says something.

We remember Stonewall, and we should.

However, Stonewall was not the last time LGBTQ+ people had to take to the streets.

The movement kept moving.

The protests continued.

The organizing continued.

LGBTQ+ people continued demanding an end to police harassment and discrimination.

🏳️‍🌈 2013: MARRIAGE EQUALITY REACHES FEDERAL TAXES

August 29 also represents another kind of progress.

On August 29, 2013, following the Supreme Court's decision striking down a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that legally married same sex couples would be recognized as married for federal tax purposes, even when they lived in states that did not recognize their marriages.

Think about the timeline.

1867: One man stands before hundreds of jurists asking society to stop criminalizing people like him.

1970: Hundreds of LGBTQ+ people take to the streets demanding an end to police harassment.

2013: Same sex married couples gain another important piece of federal recognition.

These were different generations and different battles.

They were part of the same fight for dignity.

August 29 reminds us that LGBTQ+ resistance existed more than 100 years before Stonewall.

That is why knowing our history matters.

That's legacy.

I Am Me Inc has been telling you for years, WE'VE BEEN HERE!!

Know Your history!

Respect the legacy!