Oregon Experience
Portland Pride Anniversary June 2021
Season 10 Episode 1006 | 3m 15sVideo has Closed Captions
June is Pride Month. Meet the pioneers responsible for early Portland Pride events.
June is Pride Month, and usually, Portland celebrates with a waterfront celebration and parade. The first Portland Pride Parade happened 45 years ago in 1976 when a small group of local activists decided to march through the streets. During the filming of Oregon Experience’s “Darcelle XV,” Producer Kami Horton met with some of the pioneers responsible for those early Portland Pride events.
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Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
Oregon Experience is a local public television program presented by OPB
Oregon Experience
Portland Pride Anniversary June 2021
Season 10 Episode 1006 | 3m 15sVideo has Closed Captions
June is Pride Month, and usually, Portland celebrates with a waterfront celebration and parade. The first Portland Pride Parade happened 45 years ago in 1976 when a small group of local activists decided to march through the streets. During the filming of Oregon Experience’s “Darcelle XV,” Producer Kami Horton met with some of the pioneers responsible for those early Portland Pride events.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(soft music) (crowd cheering) (bright pop music) - Hey happy pride!
- [George] Kathleen!
- I'm so happy you're here.
- Do you know this woman has won four lifetime achievement awards.
Four!
- [George] Kathleen was one of the organizers of the first pride march that we had.
- And you had maybe 200 people and many people didn't want to do it.
They thought it was scary.
- [Kathleen] - Less than 200.
(laughs loudly) - All of us were terrified.
This is Anita Bryant's time - And the guys with the turn or burn signs!
- [Off Camera] Big signs.
- And we were scared, but we got down to the waterfront.
- [Kathleen] I think really important to note that the reasons for needing safe places, it's not just the people were mean but discrimination was legal.
- [Susie] It was the only community we had.
We were still running risks of bar raids in those days.
I remember when I was teaching in Florence in 74 and five and I come into Eugene sometimes.
And if we were lucky, the bar owner would get a five minute warning that the police were on the way.
And I knew I'd lose my license in a heartbeat and everybody just drop their drinks and head out as fast as they could before the police got there.
- [Frank] You would dance with your same sex person.
And if a light changed in the room, then you switched and you had to dance with the opposite gender, because that was a signal that somebody was in.
They didn't know if it was undercover police themselves or what have you.
- [George] I came out through the Gay Liberation Front of Portland in 1970.
And at THAT time we were complete pariahs.
We were criminal.
We were considered immoral, we were considered mentally deficient.
And so I looked at it and thought, you know I'm not going to spend the rest of my life this way.
So I became an activist.
I never would have guessed back then, we would be today where we are now.
- [Kathleen] What was amazing to me was to walk down there a few years ago, I started crying.
- And I just stood there.
- Just look at what we've done!
Look at what we've done!
(crowd cheering, whistling) - (Off Camera - Darcelle we see you we love you!)
- [Darcelle] Well, look at all this!
Thank goodness.
It all started.
We put it together.
We really were the pioneers of the whole thing.
(upbeat music)
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Oregon Experience is a local public television program presented by OPB