Pride march comes home

Nottingham Pride is less than a week away, and there's a tingle of excitement this year because we're having our first march - Walk With Pride. In a way you could say that the Pride march is coming "home".

Let's start at the beginning. The Stonewall Riots of June 1969 led to the formation of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in New York shortly afterwards. They held a march on the first anniversary of the riots. Two British men were there at the time and together they were inspired to form a GLF group in the UK. One man was Aubrey Walter, the other was a 19-year-old sociology student from Nottingham called Bob Mellors.

The first UK GLF meeting attracted 9 people and from them grew an organisation that has earned a place in history as one of the pioneers of protest, even though, as a national group, it existed for less than 3 years.

After a small-scale attempt at a protest march and various "zaps", the GLF decided to hold a march with the deliberate aim of showing the "straight" world that gay men are willing to fight prejudice and discrimination. Following the example of the US GLF, the UK group arranged the first London Pride march on the Stonewall anniversary in June 1972. The idea took a couple of years to catch on, until today there's an LGBT parade every week somewhere in the world.

The Nottingham march could be a kind of memorial or celebration of thanks to the late Bob Mellors who died in 1996. It is sad that it has taken so long to have a Pride march in his home county. I hope everyone will turn out in their thousands to join in or cheer the marchers.

And just in case you think the city council have allowed the march to take place because they support diversity, write to them and ask why we can't march through the Market Square like the Caribbean and St. Patrick' Day marches.


To return to Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage, click on www.nottsrainbowheritage.org.uk