didn’t recognize that significance at the national level until 1999. Though the Stonewall Riots helped usher in a new era of LGBTQ activism and “Gay Pride” became the slogan for an increasingly global movement, the U.S. The theme was “gay pride,” and the LGBTQ communities of Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles also organized events for the occasion. But the Stonewall Riots made an especially lasting impression, and Greenwich Village locals held a march to mark the anniversary in 1970. The so-called “ Stonewall Riots” (or “Stonewall Uprising”) weren’t the first time the country’s LGBTQ community had fought openly against systemic oppression and violation of human rights in fact, the first gay rights campaign in the U.S. The police were forced to barricade themselves inside the bar as the mob grew in force and number, kicking off a series of protests that lasted for several days. Officers started arresting people, and when one hit his detainee, onlookers began to hit back. The raid was ostensibly because the place lacked a liquor license-authorities didn’t often approve them for gay bars-but it was the latest in a long line of actions taken specifically to persecute the LGBTQ community. On June 28, 1969, New York City police conducted a raid on the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village.