Last year, we celebrated the Stonewall Uprising of 1969, the 50 year anniversary of days of demonstrations against police violence and systemic discrimination, which might sound familiar today. The NYPD used bully clubs against protesters, and in response, police had their tires slashed and establishments had windows broken. The Stonewall Uprising wasn’t the only protest during that time (nor was it the most intense, that designation goes to the Snake Pit riot), though it's remembered today as a turning point in the LGBT civil rights movement.

This weekend brings another 50th anniversary, this time of the parade—the first gay rights march, held on June 28th, 1970, and now a centerpiece of Pride weekend in New York City. Though it actually started out as a protest march, not the fantasia of floats and feathers we know today.

“We set out to create a march on the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. And if we hadn't done that, nobody would remember the Stonewall today,” said Karla Jay, a former women’s and gender studies professor at Pace University, and the first woman chair of the Gay Liberation Front.

She says that within a few days of Stonewall, flyers were already circulating calling for a new kind of movement that wasn’t polite, and wouldn’t stay in the shadows. That was a real turning point.

“I went down to the Stonewall the second night of the uprising - and there was a sign in the window that was hand-lettered from the Mattachine Society. And they said, keep the peace. Cooperate with the police and go home and be quiet. And I thought - what? No! It’s too late for that,” Jay said. “And so when a group said, No, we’re not going home, we’re not going to be quiet, I said: These are my people.” (You can see the sign here.)

The Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day March started in Greenwich Village at about 2 p.m. that day in 1970, just outside the Stonewall Inn, which was then for rent, having closed the previous October.

As they gathered, the marchers were few, and brave. There were groups from Washington, DC and Boston, college organizations from Rutgers, Yale and Columbia. Some transgender people who were there at the time said that organizers asked them to march in the back, but they refused.

“The trans community said, ‘Hell no, we won't go.’ We fought for this as much as you did, or even started it,” said Victoria Cruz. “And we just mingled throughout the crowd. There was no trans contingent. We just mingled.”

They started walking very briskly up Christopher Street, because they were scared. There had been bomb threats. People worried they would be shot at, or harassed again by the police. Martin Boyce was there, and he says that afterwards they joked it was "the first run."

“I was worried about being single file, because I just watched a program on National Geographic about wildebeests and I saw how the ones on the side were picked off. So I thought I would stay in the middle — but there was no middle.”

In videos of the time, the marchers look determined. Many wore long-sleeved, button down shirts. They carried red, purple and yellow banners - there was no rainbow pride flag yet. And they had signs on tall wood sticks that said things like, "Gay Pride." And "I am a lesbian and I am beautiful."

When they reached 6th Avenue, other people started joining in.

“All of a sudden, I realized I was no longer alone,” Boyce said. “There were people on my left, people on my right, gays were joining us every three blocks.”

Gay activists Lilli Vincenz and Cliff Witt produced a documentary of that day, interviewing people anonymously. In it, you can see that observers mostly watched in silence. People are on the sidewalks, maybe two or three deep, standing there, arms crossed. Some shaking their heads and smiling a little as if to say, isn't this ridiculous? But there were darker notes. There was a sign referencing Sodom and Gomorrah. One man told the filmmakers the march was a communist plot to divide America. He called it “disgraceful and disgusting.”

But soon, the marchers started to relax and enjoy themselves. They held hands. They chanted things like, "Say it loud, Gay is Proud" and “Out of the Closets and Into the Streets.”

When they got to Central Park, there were thousands of them. Some reports later said two thousand. Others said five thousand.

There were no speakers, because the organizers hadn’t thought they would even make it to Central Park. They had a "gay-in" instead, similar to the “be-ins” of the time. There was casual folk music. Men rested on their lovers' stomachs and women leaned on their partners' shoulders. They played games like Red Rover. There was a kissing contest. The relaxed happiness has some of the feel of Pride today.

Victoria Cruz has pictures from Central Park that day. It was the first time she had publicly declared her identity like that but she says she wasn't scared. “It was liberating, are you kidding. I felt freedom and justice for all. And that freedom and justice included me, so I was kind of proud.”

That evening, a similar march was held in Los Angeles. The following year came a march in Boston, and soon Washington DC, London, Tel Aviv, and then, everywhere.