In South Florida and the world, 55 years of Pride celebrated amid threats to freedom | Opinion

In 1969, the Stonewall Inn was raided by New York City police. The uprising took place over four nights in June, taking over streets in the West Village, and the gay rights movement was declared official.

The following year, a small group of LGBTQ+ young people gathered outside the closed Stonewall Inn and started marching to Central Park. By the time they reached the park they had gathered many thousands of marchers, and the first official Pride March went into the history books.

Since then, Pride has happened around the world officially in the month of June and also on Miami Beach, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and in Wilton Manor. Starting as a remembrance and protest, it has grown into a celebration of individuality and commerce.

Pride events marked a community’s history, from the closet to the streets, in the fight against AIDS, for marriage equality, from radical young people to families with strollers and it continues to reflect changing times and greater acceptance from families and friends, business and government and maybe most importantly from community members themselves.

In the cities and nations where Pride events take place, they send a message of welcome and inclusion to all peoples as everyone is well represented in the LGBTQ+ community.

Everyone is invited to stand, march and engage under the rainbow flag. Pride is when families learn to accept daughters and sons, cousins, and parents who have bravely “come out.” It is a time when people find joy in who they are.

Over the past 55 years, Pride has taken place in Moscow, Uganda and other cities and nations where it is now a criminal act to be LGBTQ+. Where once freedom and individual rights sprouted, and the rainbow waved, silence and shades of gray have returned.

With the official death of political DEI, corporations and foundations have left or limited their support of Prides and other LGBTQ+ activities. Major corporations have suggested their top executives stay away from boards of nonprofits within the community and reduce contacts that tie them to organizations and institutions that cater to queer issues and concerns.

In a nation that has pushed for greater individual freedoms, even when difficult, it is hard to accept a United States that is closing doors rather than opening them.

During the Civil Rights movement, once schools were desegregated, the federal government sent officials to ensure every child could go to school. They did not back down.

For the first time, our government is using fear and prejudice to set official policy even after equality has been established. Using government agencies to “disappear” American citizens, arrest legal residents, hold tourists in detention and offshore others without due process forces us to confront who we are as a community within a nation that no longer respects the rule of law.

It is the rule of law that protects minorities and the marginalized. It is democracy that sustains freedoms and rights. It is a free media and public education that encourage engagement and positive change, and it is science that gives us the tools to improve the quality of life for all who live between our shores.

It makes Pride 2025 a statement, a protest and a celebration of lives worth living on a global scale. This Pride Month we stand up for all minority groups, all marginalized peoples, and all those who cannot speak out for themselves.

We unfurl the rainbow flag as a reminder of what we are fighting for, as a reminder of what it is to be a human being, and that every person deserves respect, and every story needs to be told.

Over these past 55 years we, as a community, have overcome many obstacles, and defined for ourselves and others what it is to be equal.

This Pride will reenergize us and rekindle the Stonewall flame that rests in the heart of every soul that loves freedom.

Robert Kesten is a human activist and president of Stonewall National Museum, Archives & Library in Fort Lauderdale, one of the world’s largest and most significant institutions of its kind.