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Before they could plan too much, however, the organizers needed the approval of over half of the business owners and residents on the block. gays who wanted to go to New York Pride later in the month. The date was set to June 22 ─ partly to commemorate the store’s first anniversary and also to accommodate D.C. It was the District’s first bookstore dedicated to selling gay and lesbian literature, and Macubbin was the owner. The logical spot for the event was in front of the Lambda Rising bookstore on 20th St., N.W., in the Dupont Circle neighborhood. Since he was out of a job at the time, Carpenter agreed to help, and the two got to work planning a block party that they decided to call “Gay Pride Day.” The first Gay Pride Day in 1975 took place in front of Maccubbin's own store, Lambda Rising. Shortly after that fateful party in early 1975, Maccubbin contacted his friend Bob Carpenter, a former president of the Gay Activists’ Alliance, to see if he wanted to coordinate a new gay pride event in D.C. The keynote event was a rally in Lafayette Park where about 50 men and women were “calling for more public displays of affection by homosexuals.” Even though Gay Pride Week was a one-time occurrence, Maccubbin’s event would turn into so much more. had coordinated a Gay Pride Week under the leadership of Chuck Hall, Bruce Pennington, and Cade Ware. In 1972, the Gay Liberation Front of D.C. ĭespite the occasional issues with law enforcement, gay and lesbian Washingtonians in the ’70s were making themselves more and more visible.
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Craig Howell, president of the Gay Activists’ Alliance from 1973-74 recounted, “One policeman had been coming in repeatedly asking for various licenses.about a week or so ago this took an ugly turn when the policeman brought in some of his buddies and did the usual harassment, and then afterwards they stayed outside the grill when it closed down and started harassing patrons by asking them for identification.” The police also raided the Cinema Follies movie theatre and the Club Bathhouse around that same time.
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In prior years, there had not been many run-ins with the police, but suddenly officers began asking to see identification at the Georgetown Grill and harassing gay customers.
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White gays frequented places like the Georgetown Grill, the Lost and Found, and the DC Eagle. Popular locales for Black gays included the Nob Hill Restaurant and social clubs like the Best of Washington. had a robust, albeit segregated, gay scene. As they were discussing who would be going, one of his friends asked why their own city, Washington, D.C., didn’t have a similar event ─ it was the nation’s capital, after all. Gay rights activist Larry “Deacon” Maccubbin was at a party with friends in 1975 when the topic of New York Pride eventually came up.