75,000 March Through Manhattan as NYC Pride Returns to the Streets

NEW YORK CITY — Fifth Avenue became a river of rainbow flags Sunday as tens of thousands of marchers moved through Manhattan for New York City’s 56th annual Pride March, carrying a celebration born from Stonewall into another politically charged year for LGBTQ+ rights.

Photograph by Sashimi-b

The procession stepped off at 26th Street and Fifth Avenue before heading downtown. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani were among the elected officials at the front of the march, followed by a sprawling procession of activists and celebrants. Organizers estimated roughly 75,000 people marched, with more than 2 million spectators expected along the route.

This year’s theme, “For All Of Us,” drew from words attributed to transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson: “There is no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”

Grand marshals included actors Dominique Jackson, Peppermint and Bowen Yang, former radio personality Bernie Wagenblast and the organization Gays Against Guns.

From its starting point on Fifth Avenue, the march traveled south toward Eighth Street before turning west through Greenwich Village and passing the Stonewall Inn, the bar whose history remains inseparable from the event unfolding around it. The route ultimately finished on Seventh Avenue near 15th Street.

The date carried its own significance. Sunday marked the anniversary of the June 28, 1969 Stonewall uprising, when patrons of the Greenwich Village gay bar resisted a police raid, helping ignite a wave of LGBTQ+ activism. The first commemorative marches followed the next year, establishing the tradition from which New York’s modern Pride March developed.

But the 2026 march was taking place in a markedly different political environment from some recent Pride celebrations.

President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to reverse transgender-rights policies and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Earlier this year, the administration removed a rainbow Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument before ultimately relenting amid litigation.

That tension between celebration and political resistance ran through this year’s Pride.

The march’s organizers had made their message explicit before anyone stepped onto Fifth Avenue.

“As LGBTQIA+ events and symbols are being erased, it’s vital that our community have safe spaces to show up and march to make clear: We are here,” Chris Piedmont, a spokesperson for Heritage of Pride, said ahead of the event. “We will not be erased.”

The politics were not confined to Washington.

Transgender-rights activists had also challenged Pride organizers over the participation of employee contingents from New York City hospitals that recently stopped providing some gender-affirming treatments to minors amid pressure from the federal government. Heritage of Pride said it had been speaking with the hospitals and emphasized that the contingents represented LGBTQ+ employee groups rather than the administrators responsible for decisions about patient care.

Meanwhile, New York state used Pride weekend to announce additional funding for LGBTQ+ services. Hochul said the state would expand support for the community, including $1.8 million for crisis counseling.

Along the route itself, the march continued downtown through streets closed to ordinary traffic. Fifth Avenue, Greenwich Avenue, Christopher Street and portions of Seventh Avenue were among the corridors turned over to Pride for the day.

Near Christopher Street, the procession entered the neighborhood where the movement it commemorates began.

Rainbow flags hung above the crowds around the Stonewall Inn as parade-goers filled the street behind barricades. The 1969 uprising was no distant historical reference here; the march was physically passing through the landscape from which it emerged.

Pride extended beyond the main procession. PrideFest filled Fourth Avenue from 14th Street toward Astor Place with vendors, entertainment and activities. A separate Queer Liberation March was also scheduled in Manhattan, an event created by activists critical of what they regarded as the increasingly corporate and institutional character of the official Pride March.

Events had already been underway across the city throughout the weekend, including DJs and drag performances in Times Square and a Youth Pride gathering at the South Street Seaport that featured a trans youth rally, resource tents and a dance party.

By Sunday, however, the center of the celebration was back where New York Pride has returned for decades: in the streets.

Seventy-five thousand marchers moved through Manhattan under the banner “For All Of Us,” tracing a route through Greenwich Village and past Stonewall 57 years to the day after the uprising that helped transform LGBTQ+ politics in the United States.