Seattle celebrated its first Gay Pride Week in June 1974, with a variety of festive activities at private and public venues around the city. The celebrations included potluck dinners, the opening of a gay community center, and a sing-in and rollerblading at the top of the Volunteer Park water tower. The largest event, a day of celebrations at Occidental Park, drew a crowd of about 200.
Three years later, Mayor Wes Uhlman officially endorsed the city’s pride celebration, declaring June 25 to July 1, 1977 to be Gay Pride Week in the City of Seattle. More than 2,000 supporters of gay rights turned out for the city’s first Gay Pride March. They sang, chanted and carried signs from Pioneer Square to Westlake Mall, where the parade concluded with a rally including live music and speeches. The march was coordinated by the Washington Coalition for Sexual Minority Rights and was supported by 60 organizations including the ACLU and the Washington Federation of Teachers.
The many signs carried by marchers called not only for gay rights, but for equal rights for women and other minorities. Many of the signs also protested the recent repeal of a Dade County, Florida ordinance prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people for housing and employment, and targeted anti-gay rights activist Anita Bryant.
This photo shows the parade in downtown Seattle, with marchers at front carrying a banner reading “Washington Coalition for Sexual Minority Rights – Equal Rights for All. Ahead of the marchers, a couple pushing a baby carriage carry a counter-protest sign declaring homosexuality to be an “abomination” on religious grounds.
Caption information source: “2,000 Join Seattle’s Gay Rights March” by Dan Seligman, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 26, 1977 Caption information source: “A Proud Park Day for Girls and Gays” by Kent Stevenson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 30, 1974, p. 11. Caption information source: Seattle Pride website at https://www.seattlepride.org/
