The Man Who Launched D.C. Pride
Deacon Maccubbin’s 1975 block party set the stage for WorldPride 2025 — and everything in between.
The last time WorldPride was celebrated in the United States was in New York City in 2019, marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, June 1969.
For D.C., hosting WorldPride in 2025, a half-century celebration remains the theme. In Washington’s case, however, it’s marking the five decades since the city’s first official Pride celebration — Gay Pride Day, June 22, 1975.
In light of Covid, new global conflicts, and a renewed right-wing lurch at the top of American politics, that 2019 WorldPride might seem a world away. The Before Times. It makes Deacon Maccubbin’s tales of D.C.’s first Pride all the more uplifting, providing a perspective of years, not election cycles, illuminating Martin Luther King Jr.’s promise of the “arc of justice” bending over time.
But it’s not as though this year’s WorldPride Parade Grand Marshal, along with Laverne Cox and Reneé Rapp, is trying to be overly earnest. After all, he does love to throw a good party.
“Some friends of mine and I were sitting around having a party one night at my place, and we were talking about going to New York for Pride, because that’s what we did then,” recalls Maccubbin. “And somebody said, ‘It’s great to go to New York. We love doing it, but why don’t we do something here in D.C. instead? Have a party here?’ And I thought that’s a wonderful idea.”
That’s really all it took. As the owner of two shops on 20 Street NW just north of Dupont Circle, a “head shop” called Earthworks, and Lambda Rising, which would evolve to exist for decades on Connecticut Avenue as a bookstore and community core, Maccubbin knew how to invest and nurture.
He also had his experiences from New York’s Pride events to pull from. There were also insights from a more organic Gay Liberation Front event that occurred in the meantime.
“It was a gathering, one fairly small gathering, maybe a hundred people in Lafayette Square in… I’m going to say ’73,” Maccubbin says of the GLF-led event, specifically citing leadership by his friend Bruce Pennington. “[Bruce] went by the name of Aurora Borealis at the time and was very flamboyant and very active. Someone I had great admiration for. But it was a gathering. Well, Gay Liberation Front was always a protest, wherever it was. Being a proud member of the GLF at the time, it was definitely a protest. But more like a ‘fairy princess’ protest.”
A protest, but not Pride. For that, Maccubbin and his friends would need signatures, executing D.C.’s first Gay Pride as a block party. And for that, you needed a majority of the affected residents to sign off in support (only one neighbor declined to sign). The city was supportive to the point of an official declaration marking Gay Pride Day.
On that sunny Saturday, the crowds came and Maccubbin recalls telling the TV news crews where they could and could not shoot. The Pride organizers ran the concessions exclusively to ensure they would be able to avoid charging any admission. City Councilmember John Wilson made an appearance. There was no counterdemonstration. It went off without a hitch.
“It was definitely a home run,” says Maccubbin of D.C.’s first Pride day. “We didn’t know whether 20 people would show up — but 2,000 people showed up! It was a huge success. Before the sun went down, I knew we’d do it again. We were already starting to plan the next year. There were so many people, and you could see it in their faces, their smiles and their joy to be in a crowd of people like themselves. It was just wonderful.”
So, in 1976, D.C. held a bigger Gay Pride Day, and then bigger still in 1977. The growth was so steady that Gay Pride Day had to be more than a block party, and it soon moved. And it kept moving, kept growing, kept evolving over the years.
Today, however, there’s plenty that Maccubbin says does not change, wherever Pride may be, whatever the time or place.
“No matter how big it is, no matter where it is, every time there’s a Pride held anywhere, there are new people who have never been to Pride before,” he says.
“It’s liberating for them. They walk away with a smile on their face. They’re having a great time. Those are moments that will change their life for the better. It’s hard to express how important that is in the grand scheme of things. And it’s not a time to hide. It’s definitely not a time to hide. We all need to stand up and be counted. Don’t be fearful. No matter what the politics of the day are, don’t be fearful. Stand up, be counted. Be out there and march. And if you’re marching with me, I’d love to shake your hand.”
Celebrate Pride year-round with Capital Pride’s Pride365 app. Visit www.worldpridedc.org/pride-365-app.
This article originally appeared in The Official 2025 WorldPride Guide. Reprinted with permission.
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