Alternative To NYC Pride Has Different Message: 'It's Not Over'

The NEW YORK — The massive LGBT Pride March that will pass the Stonewall Inn on Sunday likely would not be possible without the riots that unfolded there 50 years ago this month. But another march slated to begin at the landmark Greenwich Village bar aims to carry on the protest spirit of the Stonewall uprising that some activists say the main parade has lost.

Tens of thousands of activists are expected to attend the Queer Liberation March, which will step off from the Sheridan Square area Sunday morning. The march and subsequent rally will overlap with the huge parade sponsored by Heritage of Pride, which will draw more than 100,000 marchers and millions of spectators.

The alternative march was organized by the Reclaim Pride Coalition, a group of LGBTQ activists frustrated with how the mainstream march has been overrun by big companies and the police, with whom protesters battled at Stonewall in June 1969.

Organizers say the march will be free from corporations and uniformed cops, except for those providing security. And it will carry a blunt reminder for the revelers celebrating in the Heritage of Pride parade, according to organizer Ann Northrop: "It's not over."

"There is a lot going on that still needs to be addressed, and we feel that this march started 50 years ago as a protest march, continued that way for decades, but has lost that feeling and those values," Northrop said. "And those feelings and those values need to be revived."

The Queer Liberation March will retrace the 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day March, which was held on the first anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. It will proceed up Sixth Avenue from Greenwich Village to Central Park, where a rally on the Great Lawn will feature appearances from the AIDS activist Larry Kramer and the performance artist Justin Vivian Bond.

Organizers describe the event as a "people's political march" meant to contrast with the massive production that the main pride parade has become. Attendees can join the route at any time, organizers say, and everyone is welcome — but not corporate floats or cops.

While it will likely be far smaller than the Heritage of Pride parade, organizers say the march has gained momentum among LGBTQ activists, especially young people, hungry for a true pride protest.

"I think events like the election of Trump, like school shootings, like the refusal to act on climate change, is really shocking myself and a lot of my peers into feeling like these are problems that can’t just be left to quote-unquote adults who are in charge, and driving us to feel like we need to take to the streets and get involved," said Bax Pitt, a Reclaim Pride Coalition volunteer.

The Queer Liberation March will come as LGBTQ activists in other cities reconsider the role of police and coporations in their pride marches. Members of Toronto Pride reportedly voted earlier this year to bar cops from their parade and went on to consider also banning corporate and military floats.

But more than three quarters of LGBTQ Americans say they welcome police and corporate floats at pride events, according to a survey that BuzzFeed News and Whitman Insight Strategies conducted this month.

NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill indicated that he didn't begrudge the Queer Liberation March's move to exclude police.

"I think it’s important that people get to express themselves freely in the United States and in New York City, so whatever we can do to facilitate that, we do," he said at a Tuesday news conference.

Heritage of Pride also wanted to give the Reclaim Pride Coalition space to put on the march, according to Julian Sanjivan, Heritage of Pride's march director.

"We believe that everyone has a platform to a actually showcase what they believe in and the community’s a huge community," Sanjivan said. "Everyone believes in different things."