LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Today marks 50 years since the first Pride march in our nation's history.
The march took place on June 28, 1970, a year after the 1969 uprisings at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York, which were led by trans women of color.
50 years later, there's scarcely a patch on Earth that doesn't host some type of Pride event.
PREVIOUS: Transgender, Black Lives Matter march in Las Vegas last weekend
In Las Vegas on Saturday, Vegas Urban Pride and Las Vegas PRIDE hosted a “Stand in Solidarity” silent march in support of Black Lives Matter and in honor of the Stonewall Riots.
"Our goal is to channel the energy of Pride, Unity and Love while reflecting on how WE can be the change the world so desperately requires,” the event’s Facebook page said.
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Activists and organizers around the nation are using the intersection of the Pride holiday and history in the making -- including the Supreme Court's decision giving LGBTQ+ people workplace protections -- to uplift the people of color already among them and by making Black Lives Matter the centerpiece of Global Pride events this month.
MORE PRIDE HISTORY:
"Pride was born of protest," said Cathy Renna, communications director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, seeing analogies in the pandemic and in common threads of the Black and LGBTQ+ rights movements.
"Trans women of color have been targeted in what has been called an epidemic, and the Stonewall uprising happened in response to police harassment and brutality," Renna said in an email.
The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, recently released a report, "Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2020."
The full report can be found at HRC.org.
13 Action News contributed to the original story by Associated Press.
