[Ads-l] "Pride" (1974)

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Thu Jun 8 10:58:06 UTC 2023


OED3's entry for "pride" includes sense 6b:

---
b. Any of various public events (often including a march or parade)
intended to promote the interests and rights of the LGBT community, and to
celebrate LGBT identities, culture, and experience. Frequently attributive
and with capital initials. Cf. earlier _gay pride_ at _gay_ adj., adv., and
n. Compounds 2c.
---

The earliest citation given is from the Boston-based newspaper Gay
Community News from 1978 (in an item about "Pride '78"). That same
newspaper has examples of "Pride" in the phrase "Pride Week" in headlines
going back to 1974.

---
https://archive.org/details/gaycommunitynews0143gayc/page/2/mode/2up
Gay Community News, Apr. 20, 1974, p. 2 (headline)
Pride Week [continuation of article headlined "Gay Pride Week" on p. 1]
---
https://archive.org/details/gaycommunitynews0145gayc/mode/2up
Gay Community News, May 4, 1974, p. 1 (headline)
Pride Week Plans
---
https://archive.org/details/gaycommunitynews0150gayc/page/2/mode/2up
Gay Community News, June 1, 1974, p. 2 (headline)
Pride Week Plans Detailed
---
https://archive.org/details/gaycommunitynews0151gayc/page/10/mode/2up
Gay Community News, June 15, 1974, p. 10 (headline)
Pride week continues: Another parade, zaps, forums, rhino walls & art.
---

"Pride week" also appears in lowercase in a 1976 article:

---
https://archive.org/details/gaycommunitynews0402gayc/page/12/mode/2up
Gay Community News, July 10, 1976, p. 13, col. 1
Loretta Lotman and James Saslow, ex-Boston New York writers, have joined
with Regina Kahney, GCN writer, to put on a gay comedy at the Glines
Theatre in New York for pride week.
---

Also, perhaps worthy of a bracketed citation, a gay-rights group was
founded in Los Angeles in 1966 under the name Personal Rights in Defense
and Education, or PRIDE for short. The PRIDE Newsletter (which would later
evolve into the magazine The Advocate) carried news in its February 1967
issue of a "PRIDE demonstration" to protest a raid of the Black Cat Tavern
in L.A.'s Silver Lake neighborhood. The newsletter is reproduced here:

https://www.onearchives.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/one-archives-foundation-black-cat-riots.pdf

--bgz

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