On Saturday, June 28, 2025, starting at noon, a coalition of community activists will gather in Chicago’s Washington Square Park – a historic free-speech forum also known as “Bughouse Square” – to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the world’s first LGBTQ+ Pride Rally and March, which took place in Chicago on June 27, 1970, a day before similar events in New York City and Los Angeles (making it the first Pride March in the World). The 1970 march in Chicago, which began at Washington Square, commemorated the Stonewall Uprising of the previous year and laid the groundwork for the LGBTQ+ Pride Parades that have taken place internationally for the past 50 years.
The public is invited to join this year’s free event, which will launch a campaign to designate Chicago’s Washington Square Park – located at 901 N. Clark Street, across the street from the Newberry Library – as a National Historic Park, raising its current status as a National Historic Landmark. The campaign is a joint effort by local LGBTQ+ activists and historians, representatives from the office of U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (Democrat representing Illinois’ 5th Congressional District), Carlos Ramirez-Rosa…General Superintendent & CEO of Chicago Park District, the Chicago Park Foundation, and the Washington Square Park Advisory Council, with assistance from the Newberry Library, which oversees the park.
Chicago’s 1970 “Gay Liberation” march on Saturday, June 27, 1970, drew approximately 150 participants. It began with a political rally in Washington Square, then proceeded south to the historic Water Tower at Chicago Avenue and Michigan Avenue. The march then continued south on Michigan Avenue (the “Magnificent Mile”) into Chicago’s Loop, culminating in a rally at the Picasso statue in what is now Richard J. Daley Plaza across from City Hall. In subsequent years, the Stonewall Uprising anniversary was celebrated by the annual Pride Parades on the last Sunday of every June in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood.
Chicago’s 1970 march, organized by members of Chicago Gay Liberation, was followed on Sunday, June 28, by a “Christopher Street Liberation Day” march in New York City, a “Christopher Street West Parade” in Los Angeles, and a “Gay-In” in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. These and other events marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising of June 28 and 29, 1969, when a police raid at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, the Stonewall Inn, met with unexpected and fierce resistance by patrons of the bar. The resistance escalated into two nights of rioting as other demonstrators joined in to protest systemic police and government harassment of LGBT people. The area where the riots took place was designated as a national monument by President Barack Obama in 2016 – the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history. In the words of the U.S. National Park Service, Stonewall “is a milestone in the quest for civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.”
The day after this year’s event in Washington Square Park, the 54th annual Chicago Pride Parade steps off at 11 a.m. on Sunday, June 29, 2025, from West Sheridan and Broadway in Chicago’s landmark LGBTQ+ Northalsted neighborhood. The parade, featuring 151 colorful entries, will travel the 20-block parade route from Sheridan south on Broadway; then south on Halsted; then east on Belmont; then south on Broadway; then east on Diversey to Cannon Drive.
