Gay Pride Fair 1977
Location: Waterfront Park [2nd year]
Date: June 25, 1977
GAY PRIDE CELEBRATION 1977
“2-4-6-8, Gay is just as good as straight!” per Northwest Gay Review reporting from the march at Terry Schrunk Plaza in July/August 1977 issue see Left. [also see bottom]
The Oregonian reported in the article see Right, June 24, 1977
And notice the ad in the same Oregonian issue!
Per Pat Young’s Sept 11, 2000 draft for GLAPNtimeline [see above] The Portland Scribe, an alternative newspaper, does an issue on Gay Pride Week. In the Black Forum column, Niobe Erebor writes; “Gay Pride Week is joyfully here again. There are homosexual Black people, women and men. That may be 7 quite evident to some of you, but the fact is that society can, for its own perverse reasons, make gay people and Black people invisible. So a Black gay person is doubly invisible/visible- a Black gay woman triply so.”
In the Women’s Forum, Mimi writes: “I wanted an article for the Women’s Forum about lesbian alienation from Gay Pride Week. I had met many lesbians in I had met many lesbians in the past couple of weeks who had talked about their reservations and I felt that the paper would be incomplete without this perspective. However, I couldn’t find anyone to write the article. The separatists wouldn’t write for the Scribe because men read it, others felt so alienation that participation of any kind was a low priority…So I decided I’d write it myself.”
Per Pat Young’s Sept 11, 2000 draft for GLAPNtimeline June – Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt issues a proclamation for Gay Pride Dav. Negative phone calls flood his office and opponents launch a short-lived recall effort. Pastors from 14 churches place a half-page ad in The Oregonian criticizing the mayor and stating they do not agree that homosexuality should be a source of community pride. ALSO “300 to 400 persons march in Portland’s Gay Pride Parade and hold a rally at Terry Schrunk Plaza across from City Hall. Meanwhile, 200 people gather at Laurelhurst Park to protest the mayor’s proclamation.”
https://www.pdxmonthly.com/arts-and-culture/2015/05/40-years-of-portland-pride-june-2015 1977 Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt issues a proclamation for Gay Pride Day.
1977 In spring 1977, POG [Parents of Gays, predecessor of PFLAG Portland] gets two huge breaks. The first is the live Sunday television show Town Hall in May, 1977 on the topic of homosexuality. Within hours, POG’s phone is ringing off the hook. The other is Jann Mitchell’s front-page interview for The Oregon Journal, published on June 25, 1977, Gay Pride Day.” (http://pflagpdx.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/PFLAG-PDX-30th-Anniversary-History-3-portrait.pdf ).
1977 After considerable lobbying by Jerry Weller, Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt issues a proclamation for Gay Pride Day. Negative phone calls pour into his office as opponents launch a short-lived effort to oust the Mayor.
1977 – Mayor Neil Goldsmith proclaims “Mayor gets a flood of calls over gay day” The Oregonian, 126: 36,515 (June 25, 1977), sec. III, 26 8. [see below Middle]
June 1977 issue of Northwest Gay Review page 9 June brings gay pride celebrations to Northwest – Portland Plans Many Events In 1977, the city formally recognized a gay pride day. [See Below Left]
Below Right Northwest Gay Review, July/August issue.
Front page The Sunday Oregonian,June 26, 1977 see both articles below.
Above from June 1, 1986, Just Out newspaper; Right from Just Out newspaper June 1984
Top 10 milestones of Portland’s Pride celebration - oregonlive.com “1977: “Gay Pride Day” In 1977, Portland got its first Pride Parade, and controversy erupted when Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt proclaimed a “Gay Pride Day,” prompting a number of churches to publish an open letter in The Oregonian offering to help gays and lesbians repent. The proclamation also launched a move to have Goldschmidt recalled, claiming he had “defamed Portland” by turning it into “a haven for homosexuals.”
The first parade drew between 300 and 400 marchers, carrying signs that read “We are your children,” and “Defend the rights of gays – defend the rights of all.” The parade was followed by a brief rally in Terry Schrunk Plaza across from City Hall. Meanwhile, about 200 opponents of gay rights gathered in Laurelhurst Park to protest the “Gay Pride Day” proclamation.”
Portland’s first gay rights march - OPB But at this particular moment, she’s trying to remember a day in 1976, when she and a few others organized Portland’s first gay rights march.
“We were marching along and doing chants, being scared and seeing people on the sidewalk who we knew were gay or lesbian, but who were afraid to join the march,” says Saadat. “And we understood that. And it was very tense. I can’t tell you much about the rest of the day except having done it and going [sighs] you know, sorta like we lived through it, we weren’t attacked.”
One year prior to the march Portland had its first public Pride event. It had about the same turnout, around two hundred people or so. But that event was a little different because it was actually a stationary celebration. The march Saadat helped organize in 1976 was a demand for equal rights, physically moving through the city and ending at the Tom McCall waterfront park.
As Saadat recalls, some of the counter-protesters tried to infiltrate the march with signs that read: “Turn or Burn.”
“We were attacked verbally by the people we call the “Turn and Burn” people, who carry giant signs that said we were going to hell. Some of the men took their banners away and tore them up and told them to get out of the march. And they did! They were frustrated, fed up with being told that we were bad people, that we had no business proclaiming our right to exist, that we were sinners and we were bound for hell.”
But that didn’t stop Saadat and all of the other organizers from doing it again the following year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Each time more and more people came.
Article below is from The Oregon Journal, June 25, 1977.
