Protests - Challenges

In the late 1970s, Gays and Lesbians and their straight allies loudly and visibly confronted efforts to roll back civil rights protections. In 1978, the DC City Council failed to issue a Pride proclamation, but Pride went on as scheduled. 

AIDS challenged DC Pride to give visibility to new issues. Pride assumed a responsibility to remind the city of the lives being lost to AIDS. On the even of the 1983 Pride festival, the Hughes-Roosevelt Democratic Club led the city’s first AIDS vigil at Lafayette Park in front of the White House. The following year, there were calls to cancel Pride to focus funds on combating AIDS, but Pride went on as planned. In 1986, a nationwide backlash against AIDS caused Pride and its sponsor, the Whitman-Walker Clinic, to lose their insurance coverage, putting at risk primary sources of GLBT health care and public visibility. The City Council took over insurance provision for both organizations.