He remembered Pfeiffer as a man who disliked compliments. "That was such an impactful moment for me, just as it is an impactful moment for anyone who is coming out," he said. The parade was a space for him to be himself, he said.
James Cappleman, 46th Ward, marched in the parade the year he came out as gay. "One of the reasons he ran the parade so well is because Rich understood the community and its diversity from leather people to drag queens to people of color."Īld. "He was an amazing person," Chichester said. That early gay rights organization founded Chicago's first gay community center at 171 W. Pfeiffer had been a member Chichester's Chicago Gay Alliance. The two came up together in the gay rights movement, Chichester said. On Monday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot praised Pfeiffer's "tremendous contributions."Ĭhicago LGBT Hall of Fame chairperson Gary Chichester was shocked to hear his longtime fellow activist died. I just grew as a person."Īfter 45 years as Coordinator of PRIDE Chicago and organizing the pride parade, Pfeiffer died Sunday at age 70. There were about 100 people who looked like me. And I just saw this group of people marching. "Practically everybody was in the closet. "It was a horrible era to be gay," Pfeiffer told WBEZ in June. But seeing the ragtag crowd of queer hippies publicly proclaim their identities stirred a change in him, beginning a lifelong commitment to gay liberation. He said he was a depressed, closeted teenager in therapy. The first Chicago Pride Parade in 1970 saved Richard Pfeiffer's life. Gay rights activist Richard Pfeiffer, who organized the parade for 45 years, died Sunday at age 70.
We must cancel the parade for the second year.”įrye noted that Pride was personal for him, saying he “came out after watching a Pride Parade. We don’t feel, though, that we can do it safely for everyone in the parade and the people watching. Leave it at that.”įrye added: “To use the words of a song from the ’60s: ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ we really wanted and hoped that there could be a parade in 2021. Everyone knows the reasons we were wrong in our estimate as to how safe things would be in the fall. “Sadly, we were very naïve in that belief or, a more accurate word - ‘hope’. “With the advent of three effective vaccines, we felt that the date would allow for most people to be vaccinated and, thus, make it much safer to have a parade,” Frye said.