Pride Month is a time for parties, for celebration, and for walking around in skimpy bathing suits and rainbow body paint—but what are we actually celebrating? Where did this tradition start?

Gay Pride events are commemorating one of the most well-known riots against police harassment at the now-famous Stonewall Inn in New York City. Before we talk about the riots, I have to set the scene. It’s 1969, and it’s literally a crime to be gay. "Soliciting" gay sex in public will get you arrested. Police roamed the streets at night trying to catch homosexuals, often dressing up to trick unsuspecting men and women.

Gay people lived in the shadows in those days, leading double lives and doing their best to "pass" in a world that thought who they truly were was subversive and wrong. Gay bars operated under the same amount of secrecy. Most bars wouldn’t cater to clientele they believed to be homosexual, so the gay bars operated in secret, being forced to pay bribes to the police and even the Mafia to stay open. The Stonewall Inn was one such bar. Police raids were a frequent occurrence—they’d line up the patrons and  check IDs, and female cops would take patrons dressed in women's clothing into the bathroom to check their gender. Any cross-dresser or transgender person would be arrested. Can you imagine our drag queens of today being subjected to such treatment?

These raids were standard procedure until the early morning of June 28, 1969. When the police began rounding up the customers then, something was different. The patrons finally had enough. They refused to show identification, refused to cooperate. As several people were being taken into custody, a large crowd started developing outside and soon began fighting back. Queens threw bottles and hurled stones, and the police had to barricade themselves into the bar and call for reinforcements. The riots continued for five days and sent a message across the country that gay people were ready to stand up for their rights. I want to make it clear that it was our brothers and sisters of color as well as our trans brothers and sisters who were the catalysts of this movement—not the cisgender white dude that Hollywood would make you believe it was. It was the start of the Gay Rights movement in America, and the following year, Christopher Street Liberation Day (what is oft considered the first Gay Pride march) was held, a tradition we continue to this day.

So that’s why we celebrate, but what are we actually celebrating? I’ll never know what it was like to live in the shadows in the late 1960s, to live with the fear that being outed would mean losing your job, your friends, even your freedom. I just have my experience growing up in the shadows of the middle-school bullies who ridiculed me mercilessly for this part of me I had no control over. The gay rights movement has progressed incredibly quickly. In less than 50 years we went from being criminalized to being celebrated. We now enjoy the right to marriage, we’re seeing greater increases in visibility in the media, and we’re breaking boundaries all over the country. Granted, we still have far to go. We have to fight for the rights of our transgender and gender-nonconforming brothers and sisters, for one thing. But for me, Pride is a time to be thankful for how far we’ve come. We went from being attacked by the police to having the police help us dedicate the first national LGBT monument at the Stonewall Inn with the president of the United States. Pride is about celebrating visibility, that I live in a world where I can walk down the street holding my boyfriend’s hand and hopefully one day marry him.

I also have to remember those who came before me—the generations of gay men and women who suffered in the shadows and the warriors who fought for the right I have to live today in the light. As we celebrate Pride in cities all across the world, we have to come together to remember the struggles of our forebears. We have so many things to be proud of, and I hope that while we’re celebrating the beautiful floats in the parades, the fantastic parties, and the creative costumes, we take a moment to remember what we’re celebrating and how far we’ve come. I urge everyone to take the time to learn about those who came before us and what they went through.

Happy Pride, my brothers and sisters! 

Glen North is a singer, actor, and YouTube content creator living in New York. Follow him on Instagram and subscribe to his YouTube channel here.