“Most of these other cities didn’t really have pride festivals or marches to speak of.” “They would come to Lansing, which had a very big pride for a long time…because it was centrally located geographically in the state,” Horvath said. There was a time, Horvath says, back in the ’80s and ’90s, when no one was going to go to a pride march in their home town.
“Michigan Pride as an organization, was incorporated in 1994,” said Emily Horvath, former co-chair of Michigan Pride. Their rebellion kicked off a three-day riot and is recognized as the beginning of the gay rights movement. Stonewall’s gay patrons had been the targets of police harassment. That year’s festivities commemorated the 20th anniversary of the 1969 gay rights uprising 20 years at the Stonewall Inn, a bar in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. The pride parade was moved to Lansing in 1989 in hopes of attracting statewide participation.
