Since June 1970, when gays and lesbians marched in New York City on the first anniversary of Stonewall (see chapter 28), annual gay pride parades have taken place throughout the United States. According to history professor Robert Dawidoff, the parades are not about “flaunting private things in public,” as some people have charged, but a way for gay men and lesbians to express “pride … in having survived the thousand petty harassments and reminders of a special status we neither seek nor merit.” Friends and families of homosexuals participate in the parades, as this sign from a parade in Los Angeles indicates. © Bettmann/Corbis.