COMMENTARY: Every year, the NYC LGBTQ Pride parade falls on the anniversary of the fire at the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans in 1973, which up until the Pulse massacre in Orlando in 2016 was the deadliest attack on the LGBTQ community in modern history.
ABC News released a documentary on this horrific event in 2018. As tragic as the event was, it was made more tragic by the lack of interest t that followed by officials in New Orleans, as well as many of the families of the victims who didn’t even care enough about their lost family members to come and pick up the ashes of their murdered family members.
This film is an important one to watch because we mustn’t forget! Also if you haven’t read Bobby Young’s story, The Lavender Line, about gay bashing at a gay bar in New Orleans in his Quarter Stories, please do! It will give you a sense of how tenuous the safety of gay life was in the South in the 1970s and 80s.