CHICAGO – It began with a boy and his dream (nightmare?). John LaFlamboy, to be exact, as he took an idea he had in college and made it his life’s work. He owns and operates the HellsGate Haunted House in Lockport (Illinois), which was designed, built and put together by Haunted House experts expressly for the spookiest month of the year. For info on how to purchase tickets, click HellsGate.
Gay Liberation March
Pride Week: Activist Gary G. Chichester on Keeping the Pride Alive
Submitted by PatrickMcD on June 20, 2023 - 8:54pmCHICAGO – In a fulfillment of his destiny, gay activist Gary G. Chichester was Grand Marshall of the Chicago Pride Parade in 2022, to celebrate his consistent contribution to LGBTQ+ causes, including organizing and participating in the first Gay Liberation March in Chicago on June 27th, 1970. One year later in 1971, he helped put together the first Pride Parade.
Podtalk: Gary G. Chichester, Grand Marshall, Chicago Pride Parade
Submitted by PatrickMcD on June 25, 2022 - 1:30pmCHICAGO – 52 years ago Monday (June 27th, 2022), a young activist got together with a group of marchers – with no permit – and showed the City of Chicago the actual faces of gay liberation. Gary G. Chichester was part of that first gay pride march in 1970 … and 52 years later he’s the Grand Marshall of the 2022 Chicago Pride Parade, live and in person!
Pride Week Podtalk: Gary G. Chichester, on First Chicago Gay Pride Parade, June 27, 1971
Submitted by PatrickMcD on June 20, 2021 - 7:12pmCHICAGO – It’s Pride Week, ya all, part of Pride Month, culminating in the upcoming Pride Weekend … the more the Pride the better. 2021 marks the 50th Anniversary of the first official Gay Pride Parade in Chicago – the first “march” took place a year earlier in 1970, honoring the first anniversary of the Stonewall Inn Uprising.
Podtalk: Gary G. Chichester, on First Chicago Pride March, June 27, 1970
Submitted by PatrickMcD on June 27, 2020 - 11:10amCHICAGO – 50 years ago today (June 27th, 2020), a young activist got together with a group of marchers – with no permit – and showed the City of Chicago the actual faces of gay liberation. Gary G. Chichester, board member of the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame, was part of that first gay pride march … and 50 years later he remembers the freedom and history of that magic day.
