The notion of a Pride march began in 1969, shortly after the Stonewall Riots. During the early morning of Saturday, June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, but quickly lost control of the situation and a riot broke out in response to the police raid. Very few establishments back in that time welcomed openly gay people. The Stonewall Inn, which was owned by the mafia, was an openly gay bar that catered to an assortment of patrons, but which was popular with the most marginalized people in the gay community: transvestites, transgender people, effeminate young men, male prostitutes and homeless youth. It was called the 'Stonewall Riots' after the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City.
