‘They cannot erase our history. Our Pride flag will be raised again,’ says Manhattan borough president
The Trump administration has removed a large pride flag from the Stonewall national monument in New York City, marking the latest move by the federal government to end diversity initiatives and sanitize the history shared in national parks.
The monument commemorates the June 1969 riots that followed a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. The six days of protests against the police action were a key moment in sparking the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and the site has since become a national symbol of LGBTQ+ Pride.
“They cannot erase our history. Our Pride flag will be raised again,” the Manhattan borough president, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who is gay, wrote in a social media post. He confirmed that the Pride flag had been removed over the 7 February weekend following a 21 January memorandum from the interior department.
The memo from the interior department, which oversees the National Park Service, provided “guidance to superintendents and site managers on policies and procedures for the display and flying of non-agency flags and pennants”, stating only US flags, agency flags and the POW/MIA flag are allowed at parks, while including a list of exemptions that included flags that “provide historical context”.
