![first gay pride parade new york first gay pride parade new york](https://i0.wp.com/metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pride12-2d07_1587396123.jpg)
The Queer Liberation March aimed for a protest vibe, saying the main Pride march was too heavily policed by the same department that raided Stonewall a half century earlier. In 2019, there were two marches in Manhattan after some in the community concluded that the annual parade had become too commercialized. Pride NYC's announcement Saturday follows a division among organizers in recent years in planning for celebrations of LGBTQ pride in New York City. Pride season occurs this year amid activism inspired by the response to racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death last year at the hands of police in Minneapolis. The uprising is largely credited with fueling the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Those marches came a year after the 1969 uprising outside Manhattan's Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, in response to a police raid. The disruptions frustrated activists who had hoped to collectively mark the 50th anniversary of the first Gay Pride parades and marches in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in 1970. The parade is scheduled for June after the coronavirus prevented many Pride events worldwide last year, including in New York which instead hosted virtual performances in front of masked participants and honored front-line workers in the pandemic crisis.
![first gay pride parade new york first gay pride parade new york](http://images.ctfassets.net/ha6sr71ho95v/niQ8sVBMqcg8W2Yq4CWO0/f3078a88e1e25805bd2f97f9805c971b/NYC_Pride_March_Photo_by_Christopher_Gagliardi_crop_1mb.jpg)
The group called the ban an “abrupt about-face” and said the decision “to placate some of the activists in our community is shameful.”
![first gay pride parade new york first gay pride parade new york](https://i1.wp.com/metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/sei_18620918-e1529920151845.jpg)
Word of the ban came out Friday when the Gay Officers Action League said in a release it was disheartened by the decision. Police will provide first response and security “only when absolutely necessary as mandated by city officials,” the group said, adding it hoped to keep police officers at least one city block away from event perimeter areas where possible.