Object Stories Lgbtq Trail - Gay pride & lgbtq life

We're here in front of the exhibit to do with gay history in Brighton. Could you tell us a little bit about the background of Pride? Pride is basically the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots which happened in June 1969. Everyone can read more about that in the trail. The first year after that was the first pride march, so June 1970. There was only one, and it was in New York City. It was primarily organised by Brenda Howard. Who was quite a famous rights activist at the time. So this is all the background of people campaigning for rights for black people, gay people etc. Yes, at the time gay people didn't receive any kind of basic human right protection and she was campaigning for that So although it wasn't illegal, there wasn't any protection. Yeah, and so she organised this march to commemorate the anniversary of these riots that happened in '69. So she was the sort of main organiser for this march in New York. Then presumably later on it spread. It did yes, so the first year after that one in New York is when it started to spread to other cities. So that's when London had it's first Pride parade. A couple of other European cities had them aswell as other cities in America. And then it spread even further from that in 1972. So when did pride come to Brighton? It came to Brighton in 1992, so quite a while afterwards - it was later than I was expecting. But 1992 was when it came to Brighton and it's happened every year since. And what kind of things do we do for Pride? In Brighton, we have one of the biggest prides in the country. There's always a parade in the morning, it's nearly always on the first weekend of August. So we have the parade in the morning, which goes all the way through the centre of town. And then there's a festival at Preston Park. Then there's all sorts of different activities that they make you pay for now. Yes, for the last couple of years it's been a ticketed event at Preston Park. There's all sorts of other activities that happen either side of that aswell. It goes on for a few days. The idea of pride being that it goes on longer than just a parade, and one day. It's like a holiday here in Brighton. Yes, it's very important to the town. And that idea is something that Brenda Howard come up with back in 1970, the idea of pride being a few days of all sorts of things to do. So what about Brighton, itself? Obviously we take pride very seriously. We do yeah. So Brighton, it's always been known as a kind of party town ever since the early 1800's. So people have been coming here for a very long time to get away and be able to relax, go a bit crazy. Maybe around the time of the Napoleonic wars? Yes, the gay activity in Brighton in the past has centred around the times where the military soldiers have been stationed in Brighton. The Napoleonic wars were one, aswell as World War II. Lots of men used to visit Brighton during World War II because of the fact there were so many soldiers here. And from them it's kind of grown to Brighton being one of the gay capitals of the country. It is really one of the gay capitals of the country? It is. Yes, we have the highest percentage of same-sex households in the country, aswell as the highest percentage of civil ceremonies in the country.