NACHO and ERCHO

The autumn 1965 meeting of the East Coast Homophile Organizations in New York was sponsored by the DC, Philadelphia and New York based chapters, but was attended by people from 14 cities across the country. Proposals were made to have a national planning conference, which was later held in February, 1966 in Kansas City.

At the National Planning Conference of Homophile Organizations (NPCHO) attendees endorsed a loose structure created to organize ensuing annual meetings. It took the name North American Conference of Homophile Organizations NACHO (pronounced NAY-koe). Its first conference was in San Francisco in August 1966, then New York 1977, and Chicago in 1968. At the Chicago conference NACHO adopted the slogan "Gay is Good!" and a five-point Homosexual Bill of Rights. Its final conference was in San Francisco, 1970.

ECHO was dissolved in 1966 and reconstituted as the Eastern Regional Conference on Homophile Organizations, a subsidiary of NACHO. At the November 1969 ERCHO meeting in Philadelphia, they called for a march to be held in New York City to commemorate the "spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street," which had occurred in June. That is, they called for the first Pride March to commemorate the Stonewall Riots.