![the very first gay pride parade the very first gay pride parade](https://i.natgeofe.com/n/b4af3226-7b72-429d-9c14-11ddadedbe03/GettyImages-83647140-resize_3x4.jpg)
(Jay Janner / American-Statesman)Ĭonsider, too, that in April 1970, not long after the Stonewall Riots ushered in the modern era of gay rights, the first publicly promoted meeting of Austin homosexuals drew only 25 brave souls to the University Y on Guadalupe Street.Īs the Austin Gay & Lesbian Pride Foundation toasts 25 years of official annual Austin events with a festival and parade on Saturday, the emphasis is on awareness, but also on fun.įew, however, will forget Apple’s symbolic impact last year, months before the historic U.S.
![the very first gay pride parade the very first gay pride parade](https://s.abcnews.com/images/International/AP_Gay_Pride_Parade_Idaho_er_160624_hpMain_1_16x9_1600.jpg)
Zack Tedder, right, hugs his partner, Chad Willis, at the Pride Parade on June 3, 2006. That one of the country’s leading corporations assembled more than 3,000 supporters - twice the total number of participants in the first Gay and Lesbian Pride Fiesta in 1990 - for a Pride Parade that attracted north of 125,000 spectators to downtown Austin last year says something about the seismic shifts in social attitudes during the past 25 years. “It was an amazing, love-filled evening for all of us! We’ll be there again if they’ll have us.” “Our family walked with our daughter, and all 3,000 or so of her fellow Apple folks,” said Austin’s Sally Fly. Then, without warning, around the corner came a buoyant army of people in bright white T-shirts bearing a potent symbol of the 21st century: Apple. The 2014 Austin Pride Parade filed down Congress Avenue with the usual pomp, purpose and playfulness that observers have come to expect since such expressions of LGBT support were launched nationally during the early 1970s. (Jeffrey McWhorter / For American-Statesman) The parade, which finished in Republic Square Park, was preceded by a four-hour festival. Jen Billings, left, and Maegan McNeese, both of Austin, kiss as they wait for the Pride Parade to start on June 6, 2009. (Above: Steve Cronin and other members of the Heart of Texas Bears carry a 20-by-30-foot rainbow flag at the Pride Parade on June 3, 2006.)