Reporter’s notebook: Capturing this year’s Dyke March through a historic lens
June 30, 2024
By: Dean Moses
from AMNewYork
Black-and-white imagery can often capture the raw emotions of people as vividly as color, helping to sear into the public consciousness the importance of events — particularly the movement for equal rights.
The Dyke March, which first took place in the 1990s, is among the many events this Pride weekend not only celebrating LGBTQ+ rights, but also continuing the march toward greater equality for all Americans regardless of their sexual orientation. This year’s march took place on Saturday, June 19, and I yearned to show the connection between this year’s event and equal rights marches of the past by viewing it through a lens that’s nearly 50 years old.
With a Polaroid SX70 in hand, I followed thousands of protesters striding, and sometimes dancing, down Fifth Avenue. Delicately turning the focus wheel to bring demonstrators blocking traffic into sight and snapping an image that could have been taken decades prior exhibited the heritage the protest is continuing to champion.
The Dyke March is a celebration of lesbian and trans rights, and its centerpiece is the proliferation of activism — comparatively to the 1969 Stonewall Riots that led to the creation of the Pride March.
Beginning in the early 1990s, the Dyke March looked to thrust women into the spotlight in what was, at the time, a more male-dominated scene and was held with civil disobedience in mind, according to NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project.