June is Gay Pride Month, and June 2015 marks the 40th anniversary of the first Pride Celebration in Kansas City. To honor that milestone, we will be posting Pride-related material from the collections of the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America all month long! And it seems appropriate that our fist post should feature the flyer from that Pride Celebration so long ago in 1975. The three-day festival, held at the Gay Community Center at 3825 Virginia, was sponsored by the Gay People’s Union of Kansas City, the Joint Committee on Gay Rights, the Metropolitan Community Church, and the Kansas City Women’s Liberation Union.
The weekend was packed with social, educational, and spiritual activities for all attendees: everything from skits and plays to a workshop on lobbying to a picnic brunch. This rare flyer is a remarkable window into a telling moment in the development of the Kansas City gay and lesbian community.