Making use of the Oscar Wilde mailing list, they were able to get the word out. While the proposal for a march was approved, it was the Christopher Street Liberation Day Umbrella Committee that got it planned. Meeting in Craig Rodwell’s apartment and bookstore (the Oscar Wilde Bookshop on Christopher Street), the details for the first NYC Pride Parade, then known as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, were hashed out. Their proposal was for an annual march on the last Saturday in June with “no dress or age regulations.” This was a drastic change from the current methods used by LGBT activists who would host walks and vigils in silence with a required dress code: men in jackets and ties and women in dresses. Five months after the riots, activists Craig Rodwell, his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Brody and Linda Rhodes proposed a resolution at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) in Philadelphia that a march be held in New York City to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the raid. Nothing was going to change if they continued their passive, non-threatening tactics. The Stonewall Riots, as they became known, made one thing clear-the LGBT movement needed to be louder and more visible.
