City Government

Pride flag raising ceremony on June 1 to mark start of Hayward Pride Month events and recognitions

May 25, 2023

Image of Pride Flag against a blue sky.
 
In recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride, the City of Hayward will hold a Pride flag raising ceremony at noon Thursday, June 1, on City Hall Plaza and will fly the rainbow-colored banner for the entire month of June.
 
In addition, the Hayward City Council will issue a proclamation on Tuesday, June 6, designating June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Queer, Intersex, 2-Spirit and Gender Non-Conforming Pride Month in the City of Hayward.
 
Pride Month spans the month of June each year and is now celebrated nationally with parades, festivals, parties and picnics in different cities across the country. The celebrations and remembrances commemorate and pay homage to the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City on June 28, 1969.
 
On that date, which historians consider the birth of the modern LGBTQ-rights movement, the then- commonplace occurrence of police raids on bars catering to LGBT patrons was met with resistance at the Stonewall Inn in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village where bar patrons fought back.
 
Protests that ensued over the next six days are credited with a shift in LGBTQ activism in the United States and were followed the next year with some of the first Pride parades in Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as New York.