(GayWebSource.com – Gay Media & Press Network) – Posted by Doug Magditch – HisBigD.com
A protestor at the first Annual Reminder Day, via Wikipedia.org
LGBT pride month is days behind us now. Some are probably still in recovery mode. Tonight, as you watch glittery explosions in the sky, just know you aren’t only commemorating our Declaration of Independence. There’s a bit of gay history behind this date.
On July 4, 1965 about 45 people gathered at Independence Hall in Philadelphia for the first July Fourth picket. They called it Annual Reminder Day. The group picketed to call for equal rights. It was an “Annual Reminder” to remind the public that a large group of citizens is denied the rights and equality promised by the Declaration of Independence, including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“That the homosexual American citizen is a homosexual is always noted; that he is also an American citizen is often forgotten,” stated flier for the 1969 Annual Reminder Day, posted on the Rainbow History Project website. “The homosexual finds himself denied the equality of opportunity which is so essential a part of our American way of life–simply and only because he is a homosexual.”
The pickets were not widely covered by the media, so there’s no clear number on how many people picketed each year. It’s generally estimated at somewhere between 40 and 200.
They continued until 1969. The last Annual Reminder Day occurred less than a week after the police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission installed a historical marker at the site of the demonstrations in 2005, to mark the 40th anniversary of the first Annual Reminder Day.
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